Local Business Owner, Palos Hills Aldermen In Disagreement Over Permits

The owner of , announced he was breaking business ties with the City of Palos Hills during Thursday's committee-of-the-whole meeting while city officials said they had been mislead about the nature of his business.

The issue of whether or not Kozy Koffee is now operating as a banquet hall under the name Bella's has come up at numerous city meetings.

Joe Cantele attended a meeting in May and told council members that “rumors of Kozy Koffee opening a banquet hall were just that – rumors.”

Mayor Gerald Bennett said at the time the council would “take his word for it.”

, Ald. Mary Ann Schultz (5th ward) said that she saw a sign reading “party room for rent,” and asked how that did not indicate a banquet hall was operating at the location. At that meeting Bennett said that the shop no longer has a business license.

Cantele told aldermen that he thought everything was settled after the meeting in May, and has since canceled events after discovering he did not have a business license earlier this week.

“I thought I was going to be OK last time when I applied for my business license,” Cantele said. “If you don't want me in town, I'll close it up, I don't want to ruffle your feathers.”

He said the city should be eager for businesses to fill empty store fronts and create jobs and felt the zoning codes – which call for a special use for banquet halls – were antiquated, citing sections about leather, typewriter, adding machine and telegraph shops.

He left the meeting before aldermen could respond, saying he was holding an event free of charge next week because he felt sorry for the guests and didn't want to cancel on such short notice.

“Lets never speak again of this,” he said, as he left.

Bennett responded to the comments saying that Cantele was breaking the city's laws regarding special use permits and simply wanted to avoid the $1,000 fee and the process of appearing before the Plan Commission.

“He gave his word to this council about opening up a coffee shop and then he turned around and opened up a banquet hall,” Bennett said. “He doesn't want to go through and follow the rules – he's encouraged to stay in town – but he has to follow the rules.”

Schultz was angered by Cantele's quick departure.

“He attacks us like that and then doesn't even let us respond … if he doesn't want to play by the rules, then good riddance to him,” she said.

In a phone interview Cantele said because he was not serving food, he did not see how the storefront could be considered a banquet hall, and added that even though he was renting a party room, the shop was still open to the public.

His anger at the meeting was a flashback to 1993, he said, when he opened the business and felt at that time he had to jump through hoop after hoop to get started. At first the property was the base of his heating and air conditioning business, and later Kozy Koffee.

Kozy Koffee closed around six months ago.

“I'm just trying to make something out of the property that I own and make jobs in this economy,” he said. “It's just a flashback of how they treated me 18 years ago, I'm too old and too tired to be jumping through their hoops, shame on them.”

Cantele did not deny that the $1,000 fee was his beef, mainly because he didn't know what the change would be.

“I said, I don't understand exactly what will change – all that would change is I would give them a $1,000,” Cantele said. “I come to a community, I pay $18,000 in property taxes and get nothing for it.”

He said he knew that Palos Hills got a very small cut of that $18,000, and he thought this was just one way to make it up, which was not fair to business owners.

“I'm a stubborn Italian and I'm not jumping though hoops anymore,” he said. “I'm not going to just give them $1,000. I understand the cost of doing business – I have an $8,000 espresso machine – but there is nothing attached to this, no service or product. I don't want to use the word extortion, but I don't understand how giving them $1,000 is the difference in opening or not opening this shop.”

During the meeting, Bennett said that it was not a matter of $1,000, but of following city zoning laws regarding banquet halls.

During the meeting, Ald. A.J. Pasek (3rd Ward) said that perhaps the city should look at reviewing its zoning ordinance regarding special uses for some businesses.

His suggestion was not met with much enthusiasm from other council members, although Ald. Mark Brachman (2nd Ward) said it couldn't hurt to review it again.

Ald. William Hanson (3rd Ward) said that the fee of $1,000 was the cost of holding the Plan Commission meetings and they were necessary for numerous reasons.

Bennett agreed with Hanson and cited parking in the city as one reason why businesses such as a banquet halls need to go through the planning commission and apply for a special use.

“We have all these strip malls and places that don't have parking at is, if someone brought up a couple units in a single one of those and turned it into a banquet hall it would put everyone else in the mall out of business because there would never be any parking,” he said.

He also cited the city's recent decision to special use permission because of safety concerns, and other inconsistencies.

“[The daycare petitioner] paid the $1,000 and he didn't even get to open the business,” Bennett said.

Pasek said after the meeting that he did not disagree that a special use should be required for a banquet hall, but he wondered if other parts of the ordinance were too strict.

In the end, Cantele says he is unsure of the future of the property because he has had such a hard time selling it, he said he is upset he couldn't open the business because he thought it would be good for the community.

“I was just trying to do my little part to save the world, ya know?” he said. “Give people a nice place who maybe don't have a lot of space to have a party for about $300, and possibly employ one or two people from town and get some business going and some people working.”