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In all, he estimates it has cost him about $25,000 to bring the store at 1102 Ludlow St. up to standards, including a long $11,000 wheelchair ramp alongside the building, exit signs and emergency lighting, plus the required disabling of an employees-only toilet in the low-ceiling-ed basement and replacement of it with an employees-only bathroom on the first floor for the one-room neighborhood store that his grandparents opened at the location in 1914. He also was required to stain the cedar-plank floors.
City officials shut down Milillo Grocery for 10 days starting Sept. 21 over building-code issues.
Hamilton’s economic development director, Jody Gunderson, this week defended the city inspectors’ decisions concerning the grandma-and-grandpa store.
“The city staff is required by state law to enforce Ohio’s health and building codes that protect the public,” Gunderson said. “These are state regulations, not local regulations, that govern development across the state of Ohio.”
City Council on Jan. 25 approved a resolution approving the grant, which can be forgiven if the equivalent of 1½ more full-time jobs are created by the end of 2018. But even that night’s meeting frustrates Milillo, he says, because during that session, Mark Lankford, associate director of the Butler County Business Development Center asked for a list of all the work that must be completed to meet the city’s requirements. Eight days later, he said he still had not seen that list.
Through the process, “every time they (city inspectors) came, it was a different thing” they wanted improved, he said.
MORE: Longtime Hamilton business shutting its doors
The store’s closing made news reports because the store had been there so long, and was shuttered a day after Milillo’s lawyer was told the store would be shut if it didn’t meet building codes. Milillo’s sister, Elaine Milillo Meeks, went to the city in March to renew the store’s license, as she had each year for decades, but a health official rejected the request.
Their father, also named Frank, died July 18, 2015, after a battle with cancer. For several years before that, Frank and Elaine increasingly helped with the store.
Milillo’s grandfather, Francesco “Frank” Milillo, moved with three brothers to the United States from Bari, Italy, in 1909, and opened a bakery, which he and wife, Concetta “Katie” Milillo, later sold to a brother, and opened a grocery at 7th and Ludlow, which now is a vacant lot. Another brother opened a pizza shop, Milillo’s Pizza, which still exists. Another owned a bar that has been torn down.
After fighting two years for the Italian army, Francesco returned to this country and started the grocery that still stands, at 1102 Ludlow St., where he also was a butcher, in 1914.
Milillo credited Mike Dingeldein of the Community Design Alliance with providing design drawings, valued at $3,500, that helped his business do the work.
“I’ve got the only handicapped ramp in this neighborhood, but I’ve got one, because they insisted,” Milillo said. “Thankfully, Mayor (Patrick) Moeller, (City Manager) Joshua (Smith), they have a lot of common sense, and they were very helpful, and they pointed me in the right direction.”
“If this is going to be a business-friendly town, which it really needs to be … I think a lot of big companies are afraid to come here, because regulations need to be reasonable,” he said. “Just because this neighborhood needs this place to walk to, they need a job to walk to — not a $10-an-hour job, a good-paying job.”
On the other hand, many businesses that have moved in to the city or expanded in recent years have been effusive in expressing how helpful city officials have been in providing advice and assistance that made their decisions and moves smoother.
Staff writer Eric Schwartzberg contributed to this report.
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