Halls Ferry home’s pink paint leads to change in ordinance
Published 12:00 am Monday, July 22, 2002
Phil Tremaine, owner of Top Dollar Pawn and Gun at 3421 Washington St., prepares to paint “Baby Mack,” one of three gorilla statues outside his shop. Tremaine said that he plans to paint the statue lime green. (The Vicksburg Post/C. TODD SHERMAN)
[07/22/02]Pink paint on a house on Halls Ferry has led to a change in local law that may result in a green gorilla on Washington.
Elma Brown, a retired school teacher, is the homeowner. She said she did not know there was a law regulating the exterior color of her residence, but found out when the city’s inspection department issued a stop-work order for work at her home at 3914 Halls Ferry Road.
“I wasn’t aware of it,” Brown said. “I thought you could select what color you like since you are responsible for it.”
But a 4-year-old provision, Section 6-277 of the Vicksburg code of ordinances, does address hues that can be used for structures along 20 major corridors in Vicksburg. The law did not ban specific colors, but stated that all should be, “soft, calm or subdued”
When Brown sent a letter to City Hall challenging the law, the current administration, in office for a year, decided to take a look at how much control it wanted over private property.
“You can’t regulate taste,” said Mayor Laurence Leyens. “Part of what is great about America is that you can express yourself.”
Brown was allowed to finish painting her home, and the city board voted to repeal the ordinance July 10, in part due to opinions from the Attorney General’s Office confirming that the city could not regulate colors outside of designated districts such as the historic district in downtown Vicksburg. There, colors are legally limited to shades of gray, beige, dark green and maroon.
When it was adopted, the 1998 ordinance focused a lot of attention on a hot-pink gorilla outside a Washington Street business. The pink gorilla remained, grandfathered in because it was pink when the law was passed.
But now that the law is gone, Top Dollar Pawn & Gun owner Phil Tremaine said he will use a lime green hue in painting a smaller gorilla added to the storefront family about a year ago.
“I didn’t put those gorillas there to make anybody mad. I did it to help my business,” Tremaine said. “There may be a few people who don’t like the gorilla, but the majority do.”
He said that the gorillas have become icons of Washington Street and is pleased to see the law repealed.
“It was something that never should have taken place,” Tremaine said. “There are more important things in Vicksburg that need attention than that pink gorilla.”
Tremaine’s gorilla and Brown’s home are not the only paint jobs in Vicksburg outside of the color scheme. A blue house on Cherry Street and a yellow cash checking business on Clay Street were also considered “bright” and “unacceptable” under the repealed law.
Those structures were allowed to stay because they had been painted those colors before 1998.
In addition to the color restrictions that still apply in downtown under historic guidelines, some neighborhoods have covenants regarding colors.
Leyens, who owns four properties in the historic district, said he does not think the city should be telling people outside a designated district what color to paint their homes.
“If you want to paint your house purple with pink polka dots that’s your right,” he said.