A Hampden restaurant owner's decision to disassemble an oversized flamingo rather than pay a newly imposed annual tax is being lamented by many in the business district where the big bird hung overhead for seven years.
But others call the controversy a silly distraction.
Cafe Hon owner Denise Whiting, working with the artist who constructed the bird from bedsheets and wire, removed the flamingo from her fire escape before dawn Tuesday, several weeks after the city Department of General Services assessed her $800 in annual charges.
Officials ordered Whiting to pay for a "minor privilege" permit, most commonly used by businesses whose tables and benches encroach on sidewalks. Whiting challenged the tax at first, saying the bird was artwork. But then she abruptly gave up the fight.
"The bird has gone into hibernation," she said Tuesday, as several bird-leg sections awaited disposal on the 36th Street sidewalk. She declined to say where the rest of the sculpture was. She also distributed handbills saying "City of Baltimore says pay tax or get axe."
The flamingo's picture has appeared in local advertising materials about the neighborhood, which has attracted many new boutiques, artist galleries, small cafes and retail business owners in the past 15 years.
It also became a background piece for the annual HonFest, an outdoor event that closes streets while thousands of visitors fill the neighborhood.
Carmen Brock, owner of the Red Tree home accessories shop, said she regretted the bird's disappearance.
"It was a great promotional symbol," she said. "It was fun, easygoing, witty and clever."
Cynthia Shea, who runs the Soup's On cafe, also on 36th Street, said she and her adjoining business owners were in a "flamingo frenzy" because of the loss.
"The city of Baltimore makes it hard to be a small business owner in so many ways," she said. "Baltimore struggles as a metropolitan city for a lot of small reasons, and this is one of them. Does the city just want big stores and big businesses?"
But David Wells, owner of the Wine Source, an Elm Avenue retail liquor business, called the flap "much ado about nothing."
"Were it me, I'd pay the fine and move on. You pay your taxes and run your business," he said. "We have bigger fish to fry in Baltimore City."
Charles "Chick" Nott stood outside a local pub, Frazier's on the Avenue, and offered little sympathy for the bird's flight and the restaurant's owner.
