“Why does the dog wag its tail? Because the dog is smarter than the tail.
If the tail were smarter, it would wag the dog.”
— “Wag the Dog,” 1997
When Kim Houghton left a 20-year advertising career at the Washington Post in 2008, she wondered what to do next. “I realized I spent most of my time accumulating dogs (three) and going to dog parks,” she told The Examiner. “So I started doing research on a doggie day-care business.”
It took the 46-year-old Arlington resident 11 months to find the ideal location for Wag More Dogs: 2606 S. Oxford Street, adjacent to the Shirlington Dog Park. She signed a lease in July 2009. That was the easy part.
Six months later, Houghton says she was told she would have to relocate because there was not enough parking. The issue was resolved only after her landlord hired a lawyer to parse the difference between “standing place” and “parking place” to the county’s satisfaction. But Arlington bureaucrats were not finished with her.
Houghton had commissioned Arlington illustrator Mark Gutierrez to paint a 60 by 16-foot mural on a blank cinder block wall facing the dog park.
Any normal person would consider the whimsical portrayal of running cartoon dogs and bouncing bones just perfect for the setting. Not Arlington County zoning administrator Melinda Artman, who viewed it as a violation of the county’s sign ordinance.
Artman denies Houghton’s allegation that she only found out about the alleged violation when the contractor she hired for renovations couldn’t get a building permit. But there’s no dispute over what happened next.
“They requested that I either paint over the mural or cover it with a tarp,” Houghton said, adding that the permit was issued only after county inspectors made her cover up a paw and a bone that were still visible to dog park patrons.
Her business, delayed several weeks, opened in September. On Oct. 8th, Houghton received an email from the zoning office outlining alternatives to the standoff: Remove any canine-related figures, paint over the entire mural in a solid color, or add “Welcome to Shirlington Park’s Community Canine Area” in four-foot high letters, “visible from across the park,” at her expense, in effect turning her generic dog mural into the county’s sign.
“The mural looks just like her logo,” Artman explained. “If you consider that the Mercedes Benz or Lexis logo is not advertising, then I suppose Ms. Houghton is correct.”
County Board member Jay Fisette said he has “no reason to doubt” Artman’s decision, even if that means that the tarp remains in place permanently. “If you cannot see the mural, there’s no zoning violation, so yeah, there’s nothing to prevent her from doing that,” Artman told us.
The Arlington-based Institute for Justice begs to differ. Last week, attorney Rob Frommer filed a federal lawsuit on Houghton’s behalf.
“Kim’s mural has no words and nothing you would think of as advertising. According to a number of county emails, she could have anything on the mural except dogs, bones, paw prints, or people walking dogs. But the First Amendment doesn’t let government officials play art critic,” said Frommer, who is seeking a preliminary injunction against the county.
“I was completely surprised by the lack of support and almost venom that came through,” Houghton told me. “Other businesses have contacted me and said they’ve had the same experience.”
Meanwhile, Arlington taxpayers — who are already paying legal fees to “protect” them from HOT lanes on I-395, will soon be billed to combat a new threat from cartoon dogs.
That bites.
Barbara F. Hollingsworth is The Examiner’s local opinion editor.
