Clothes call: Local gym demands gender-specific attire for kids

Julia Lapan’s 3-year-old daughter was excited to take her first gymnastics class at Classics Gymnastics. “She ran onto the floor,”—only to be sent back because she was wearing a T-shirt and shorts. “I bristled at that because she was wearing what the boys were,” says Lapan, who asked that her daughter’s name not be used. […]

Crossed off: Petition to close Fourth Street withdrawn

The woman collecting signatures to close the Fourth Street Downtown Mall crossing has withdrawn her petition and deleted her Twitter account. “There was so much outcry, so much hatred,” says petitioner Aileen Bartels. Safety was her primary concern, and she wanted people to be able to visit the mall without worrying about cars. Although her […]

Controlling the narrative: Panel looks at black Charlottesville’s stories

Why Charlottesville was targeted by a white supremacist rally, ostensibly to protest the removal of a Confederate statue, has led to several theories. That was the starting point for a panel sponsored by the UVA library August 12, two years after the Unite the Right rally. “Beyond the statues: The invisibility of black Charlottesville” began […]

Nothing sacred: Houses of worship beef up security

Pittsburgh. Christchurch. Charleston. The list of communities devastated by mass murderers continues to grow, as the past weekend attests. And houses of worship have found that nothing is sacred to those determined to target people of certain religions or races. Congregation Beth Israel realized that the weekend of August 12, 2017, when neo-Nazis marched through […]

‘The squeeze’: Novelists sue city and county for business tax bills

John Hart and Corban Addison Klug both make a living writing novels. Unlike writers for newspapers and magazines, which state code exempts from business license taxes, Hart and Addison received sizable tax bills from Albemarle County and Charlottesville that they say are unconstitutional. The two men filed lawsuits against the city and county July 24, […]

Overtaxed: Numbers don’t add up for diners

Charlottesville raised its meals tax to 6 percent July 1, which, on top of the 5.3 percent state sales tax, adds more than 11 percent to your dinner tab. But a computer glitch at one local restaurant meant some customers were paying more than 16 percent. Lorena Perez, a designer at C-VILLE Weekly, had lunch […]