ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WHEC) -- Rochester businesses hoping to keep themselves safe from possible vandalism or looting are hoping the city will cut them some slack and let them keep their windows boarded up.
City code inspectors have been telling them their plywood facades violate zoning regulations.
'I mean we don't like it either but, what can you do?' asked Zury Brown owner of El Pilón Criollo on North Clinton Avenue.
She admitted she and her employees miss seeing sunlight, and the street, with the windows boarded up. But she said she wants her place to be safe after sometimes extreme instances of vandalism and looting, and months of unrest on Rochester streets.
'The destruction, people coming in and breaking everything, and it was just sad,' she said. 'As a business owner, you know what it is to have a business, to work for your business. To have that taken away from you is [a] really sad thing to see.'
Now a city inspector has told her the plywood has to come down.
Stores like the Metro PCS on Lake Avenue which has its windows smashed four times, and restaurants like El Pilon are being ordered to unboard their windows.
The issue, say city officials, is some people don't like seeing boarded-up storefronts.
'Complaints, from neighborhood leaders,' said Gary Kirkmire, Rochester Commissioner of Neighborhood and Business Development, 'from residents, from business owners, actually, that operate neighboring businesses, that don't really appreciate the look and the feel of boarded-up buildings that are occupied.'
The owner of the Clinton Avenue Jewelry pawnshop next door told News10NBC he has taken down his plywood but not the metal grates over his windows. He said he'd rather pay a fine than see his business broken into, trashed and looted, as it has been before.
Brown says she doesn't want to get hit with a fine and doesn't know what to do. Nearby stores have bars or metal grates on their windows. But newer zoning laws don't allow them on a new building like hers, built only 7 years ago.
City regulators say the situation on Rochester's streets has calmed down.
'We've seen no continuing evidence of vandalism or threat thereof we've been trying to ask people to remove them if we believe, collectively it's safe to do so,' Kirkmire said.
Brown says she did take her plywood down for a while a few weeks ago, and it cost her a $2,000 plate glass window, broken in a new round of unrest.
'We had them [plywood] before, we took them down. And then when the protest started again, that's when we had this here,' she said pointing to the still-unreplaced window.
The Metro PCS store is installing new folding swing gates which do comply with city zoning.
Because they're on the inside of the store's big windows, providing no protection for the glass.
Brown says she wants to find a way she can be allowed to install something similar to what her neighbors have, on the outside of the windows, so any trouble out on the street doesn't turn into a shower of glass in her restaurant.
City officials say it's possible for a business to apply for a zoning variance for other kinds of protection and Brown says she's hoping for some flexibility.
'We are hoping to find a way that we can meet halfway with the city and they allow us to do something in the windows so we can cover them, in a way that it would look nice,' she said.