A dispute over code violations and special use permit conditions is threatening to shutter the Rockford charity known as Miss Carly’s.
Officials say the Fifth Avenue nonprofit that operates out of the live-work home of Carly Rice and Jacob Rush has as many as 37 code and special use permit violations and fines totaling $27,500.
The city is asking a Winnebago County court judge to order Miss Carly’s to bring its building into compliance — which could cost as much as $200,000 — and pay the fine or shut the location down.
“We’ve kind of dragged our feet on some of it because it’s like, what’s the point?” Rice said. “Why do this work just so that we can then go do all the same work next door?”
The charity recently purchased the neighboring former Ellida Lodge building with plans of moving the nonprofit’s base of operations there, but the idea hasn’t panned out as Rice had hoped.
Moving plans on hold
Rice knew the Ellida Lodge at 1115 Fifth Ave. was not only larger than the existing space, but it had been operating as a social club and presumably didn’t have the same kind of code violations as their current building, a former Buddhist temple at 1121 Fifth Ave.