Wilmington’s war on Flip’s makes 99th percentile of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard

(You see, years of experience in studying government have taught me not to declare anything the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.)

Thanks to CarolinaPlottHound I encountered the following compounding example of gratuitous local government obnoxiousness:

• The City of Wilmington requires a local landmark barbecue business, Flip’s, to take down its 50-year-old sign
• Business owner Bob Church incurs the expense of removing the sign to comply with the new city ordinance
• The City then returns to harass Church with the following:

“On Tuesday, I get a call from the Zoning Department asking me if I had a permit to take my sign down,” said Flip’s Bar-B-Que owner Bob Church.

Church says a city code enforcement officer told him he needed clearance to remove the sign.

Apparently Wilmington requires a Compliance with City Ordinances Permit; unlicensed compliance is actionable and not permitted.

Church understands the underlying problem with such meddling:

“The amount of stress I’ve been under for the last two weeks has been crazy,” he said. “Like the president said last night (and) Gov. Romney: small businesses need to get the country going, and here they are beating the daylights out of us trying to ruin us, and I don’t understand that. What’s going on?”