Remember back on Feb 13 when I said that our stack of bullshit paperwork had finally moved its way from gathering dust at the Planning department to gathering dust at the Building department? And so the three month countdown before Building was expected to actually do anything had begun? Well, apparently that was bullshit. Days after I was told, "It's at Building now", Planning called back and said, "Oh, just one more tiny thing and you're done..." Then we did that, and a week later, "Oh, just one more tiny thing and you're done", and repeat a few more times, and five weeks have vaporized. So maybe -- maybe -- it will actually move to Building by March 23. I guess I won't know for sure until some time has gone by without Planning calling back and saying, again, "Oh, we haven't sent it yet, because there's just this one more thing..."

And when I freak out about this, everyone acts like I'm crazy.

Some amount of construction has started upstairs. I was out of town for a bit more than a week and expected to come back to see framed-out bathrooms upstairs by now. But no, instead I see some stacks of cut plywood and not a lot else.

At this point, there's basically no chance we'll get our second building permit, the one that lets us cut doors in the wall and build the upstairs bar, before July. Even assuming the bathrooms are finished by then, which is far from a foregone conclusion. So if the rest of the construction takes four months -- which, given the small amount of work it is, sounds more than reasonable, right? But, ha ha, I've done this before, I know "reasonable" has nothing to do with it -- well, that would put us in November. So then it only takes another one-plus of these inexplicable, useless, passive-voice, responsibility-dodged delays like this latest random five weeks of hurry-up-and-wait to cause the new space to not be open for New Years Eve.

That's, you know, kind of a big fucking deal.

Yeah, it's only March and I can already see NYE slipping away because I live in a city so hostile to local businesses that that's actually a thing.

And we've been at this since FEBRUARY 2011.

What the fucking fuck.

Anyway. Here's some photos: