Fridley Weighs Revoking Home Depot Permit

The City of Fridley, staff and city council, called the local Home Depot store on the carpet Monday night for several violations of storage and display requirements in special permits for its garden center.

Both Fridley city staff and council members said they were frustrated by the repeated offenses since the city first issued a permit in 1995, replaced by a second in 2004.

During a public hearing on the possible revocation of its garden center special use permit, Home Depot’s east metro regional manager Scott Tessmer, its district manager and the store’s manager all tried to assure the council that the store would obey all the stipulations of the current permit.

Mayor Scott Lund said taking the matter to the point of a public hearing on a permit revocation showed how serious the matter was. He noted that the store could end up without a garden center.

Home Depot’s Tessmer responded that if there weren’t a garden center, there wouldn’t be a Home Depot either.

Tessmer said corporate communication issues caused some of the problems, including lack of contact with Home Depot’s legal department at headquarters in Atlanta, and at the Fridley store with the maintenance department.

The council asked city staff to come back to its Oct. 10 meeting with a finding of facts and recommendations on the permit revocation. The council suggested the staff talk more with the Home Depot managers.

Fridley Planning Manager Julie Jones told the council that the store violated a permit in 1996, 2002, 2003, 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2011 by storing merchandise improperly and by setting up lawn equipment, carts of garden supplies, plants or sales displays outside the garden center.

When notified of violations, the store has complied with staff’s directives to resolve code enforcement cases, she said.