‘THEY SHUT ME DOWN’

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Cornhole enthusiast stands up for home-based businesses against city

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  • ‘THEY SHUT ME DOWN’
    ‘THEY SHUT ME DOWN’
  • Clint Alford and his wife, Katelyn, make cornhole boards as a hobby. The city recently said Alford can’t make the boards from his home anymore until he gets a variance. The city, meanwhile, is forming a committee among city council members to look at possibly changing or updating any ordinance for home-based businesses in the city. CONTRIBUTED PHOTOS FROM CLINT ALFORD
    Clint Alford and his wife, Katelyn, make cornhole boards as a hobby. The city recently said Alford can’t make the boards from his home anymore until he gets a variance. The city, meanwhile, is forming a committee among city council members to look at possibly changing or updating any ordinance for home-based businesses in the city. CONTRIBUTED PHOTOS FROM CLINT ALFORD
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Clint Alford likes to play a game called cornhole.

He also likes wood working.

So he combined those two passions and started making cornhole boards as a hobby, or a side hustle as he likes to call it.

He and his wife, Katelyn, started making them from their home.

Soon, though, the side hustle became too big for their home.

He expanded into a larger building in Cordell with what he thought was a commercial lease.

And things were going well for a few months. So well, in fact, that he was going to purchase the larger building.

Until for reasons still unknown, he said, the city of Cordell shut him down late last month.

“They haven’t shown me anything that I can or can’t do out of there. They didn’t show me anything I violated. Nothing. They give me two pages of phone numbers,” he said.

The city didn’t give Alford a citation, summons, a cease-and-desist order, but they shut him down nonetheless, even threatening to turn off his power, he said.

Part of the issue was the building Alford was renting is a residential building, not a commercial structure. Alford was forced to scramble to clear his name. He was able to produce a commercial lease agreement he signed in good faith. He was also able to show the city issued him a commercial dumpster for the building.

Those two items were enough to show he was operating in good faith.

“I proved my innocence. I was mislead (about the building being for commercial use),” he said.

What he really wanted, though, was just to be left alone for 30-60 days.

“To get everything cleaned up, to get a variance, to get everything commercial in that building so I can roll,” he said.

Alford never got that chance.

“They shut me down. They should have been able to work with me,” he said. “I pay taxes in this town. I pay taxes on my cornhole boards, everything about my business is legitimate.”

Frustrated, Alford at least thought he would take his hobby back to the family home and continue his passion of making custom cornhole boards.

“My wife and I, this is how we started, how any home-based business starts,” he said. “We don’t need any variance. It’s just a home-based business as a hobby.”

Alford asked mayor Jerry Beech if that would be OK.

“Mayor says, ‘Yeah, that sounds like something we can do. Let me check in with my brother (the city’s attorney).’ He said, ‘Don’t do it yet, but let’s see if you can do it.’ ”

About a day later, city administrator J.C. Moser calls Alford.

“He says, ‘Hey I’m the guinea pig on this thing. I’m calling to tell you, we’re not going to let you do anything from your home,’” Alford said about his recollection of the call.

Alford asked whether it was the shop building he had rented or was it his business that was reported.

“Where are we drawing the line with this,” he wondered?

Moser told him, Alford says, that if you define what the city is going by, then anyone who is selling anything from home is under the same ruling Al ford is.

“I guess it all comes down to, I don’t want to play the victim card and say I’m being harassed and bullied by the city,” Alford said. “But at the end of the day, I have to stand up for anybody with any kind of hobby or any kind of side hustle in this town.

“It’s very frustrating that we have to run our town like New York City and can’t work together on this.”

HOPE AT THE CITY COUNCIL MEETING

Alford pleaded his case during the public remarks segment of the Oct. 19 New Cordell City Council meeting.

He found support from councilman James Newman and others.

“As the council, as the city, our job is to work in partnership with the people of Cordell, and not be the hammer looking for the nail, which is unfortunately how I thought this was handled a little bit,” Newman said during the meeting. “There are other people besides just Clint and his business. There are a lot of people in this town who sell things from their homes for different reasons.”

Most of this nation started out selling from home, Newman said.

“Apple started that way. Hewlett Packard started that way. A lot of places did,” he said.

The city must be amenable to working with residents, Newman said.

“I just want to make sure that the city looks at things in a different perspective than we are right now. Unless neighbors have an issue with it, then I think we should have a review process,” he said.

Cordell is a small town, he added. “We have to protect these people. We need every business we can get.”

Councilwoman Vona Hicks thinks the city needs a review process.

“If we are going to go into a man’s house and tell him you can’t do that in your house, there should be some kind of time there to look at it and not just shut someone down on their own property,’ she said.

Councilwoman Zetta Penner thinks the city could have handled the matter better.

“I feel like possibly we were the ones in the wrong. We should have at least notified him ahead of time and told him he had 10 days to come to the city offce and talk with J.C.”

Penner said she, too, does crafts from home.

“I do them in my garage. And I know that my house is zoned different than most people’s, but still if it wasn’t, I would still make wreaths, do T-shirts, fix flowers and things in my garage. And If I get a chance to sell them, I’m going to sell them.”

Residents need to understand if they are violating laws, councilwoman Cheryl Wedel said.

“Apparently there needs to be way to work with people so they understand if they are violating a law, they know which one it is. We have ordinances in place, and it’s our job to continue to enforce them, and if they are poorly written, we need to find a way to change them and get them up to date,” she said.

Ultimately, the city council gave Alford 30 days to get a variance and will form a committee to look at changing any city ordinance relating to home-based businesses. Alford plans to take advantage of that time and seek a variance, he said.

“It’s been nearly a month, and I still haven’t been told what I violated,” Alford says. “All I got was a list of phone numbers. That’s probably the biggest laugh in all of this. All of this and I still don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

Alford hopes the council can do the right thing and work with home-based businesses.

Newman will work on the committee to revise any ordinances, he said. He doesn’t want to gut any zoning laws. He hopes to have some answers in the next month or two.

“The city is a partner with the people who live here. We need to find a way to work with everyone,” he said in a phone interview late last week.

Meanwhile, Alford feels like he’s David fighting Goliath.

“I guess I’m standing up for anyone who sells Tupperware, Scentsy, Avon, does anything from their homes,” he said. “At the end of the day, nobody’s off limits.”