The Cigar Lounge That Bureaucracy Almost Killed

[El Presidente]

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Before Bison Head moved in, the building had been a dry cleaner that displayed an old, broken sign that was apparently important enough to be deemed historic by a local preservation body connected to the city. Lewis says the city wanted him to put it back up.

 

"One big issue with that is we're not a dry cleaner," he says. "Another big issue with that is the sign is broken." The sign was old neon, the kind that requires specialist labor to repair. The estimated cost was "upwards of $10,000."

Lewis offered the city a deal. If it wanted the dry-cleaning sign preserved as a historic landmark, Bison Head would keep the sign, bill the city for the roughly $10,000 refurbishment, and let taxpayers know exactly what their money had been spent on. "All of a sudden," Lewis says, "the sign issue went away."

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