From the outside, Penny Road Pub in South Barrington looks like just about any suburban eatery with modern pale brick walls, while it maintains a country feel with gravel driveways and open grassland and a plant nursery beyond the pub. However, inside, the bar is an open floor plan with a pool table and several high tops scattered where live music is king and as many as 70 bands a month play the stage within the original 157-year-old timber structure.
Dave Sanfilipo, owner of Penny Road Pub, said his regulars, known as roadies may have to find a new place to stop for cheap food and live rock music. The business, which is set on a back road in unincorporated South Barrington, has been known as a hot spot for motorcyclists and local clubbers since 1972.
Sanfilipo stands in the timber saloon built in 1853, swimming in his old clothes, saying he has lost 80 pounds due to stress and aggravation in court battles over building code violations and his land, which he says may be acquired by Cook County.
How do you do business with all this aggravation? Sanfilipo asked. Its made me sick. I already have health issues and I spent $150,000 in lawyers fees fighting these violations.
Sanfilipo said he might lose the business, which has been in his family for more than 20 years due to 15 building code violations fines hes been fighting since 2008.
His son, John, quit attending DePaul University five courses short of achieving his bachelors degree to run Penny Road while Sanfilipo battles the courts and his undiagnosed illness.
The most recent slough of code violations began when Sanfilipo hosted an outdoor concert on July 19, 2008. He was cited for hosting the concert without zoning approval.
Sanfilipo said he argued with Cook County officials that he could host a concert on his farmland, neighboring the pub, but he said his comments were not well received.
He was later visited by Cook County inspectors six times between August and November in 2008.The violations range from a failure to install a sprinkler system to a failure to post a maximum occupancy sign.
Cook County Building and Planning Commissioner Donald H. Wlodarski said Penny Road Pub is not the most extreme case his office has seen in regard to building code violations and that his office is not putting Penny Road Pub under the gun.
We use the ordinances and the codes and we dont look at what we feel about the owners, Wlodarski said. Were just trying to make sure these facilities are safe.
Sanfilipo also said he believes Cook County wants to run a bike trail through his land and the neighboring Klehm Nursery, which rents acreage from him.
Sanfilipo says that in 2004 the Cook County Forest Preserve offered him $1.4 million for his land as part of the Spring Creek Greenway project, which through numerous parcels, which have also not yet been purchased, in addition to Sanfilipos, could connect 30 miles of the Paul Douglass and Palatine bike trails. Sanfilipo said he declined the offer because he paid $4 million in total for the land after buying out his father and brother over the years.
He bought the last parcel from his father and brother in 2002, when, he said, Cook County began pressuring him to take the land using eminent domain.
Nearby is Klehm Plants Nursery. Several months after Sanfilipo said he declined the $1.4 million deal, he and Klehm Plants were cited for five building and zoning code violations.
All this stuff seems interconnected, Sanfilipo said. Theyre hammering me.
But Cook County Forest Preserve officials say the Greenway project is hardly a high priority, if not a nearly lost project.
This is not something were aggressively pursuing, said Dave Kircher, chief landscape architect at the Cook County Forest Preserve. Its not active. There are no funds set aside for doing this project.
The Spring Creek Greenway project dates back to 2000, when the Forest Preserve office received grants to connect the two bike trails and gain ownership of the nearby stream, which is a tributary of Spring Creek.
The area surrounding Klehm Nursery, said Kircher, has a unique native system of wetlands. But the land of the nursery itself is not as valuable to the Forest Preserve office, said Kircher, as it has been heavily farmed.
Kircher did say that a major cog of the project does involve the property surrounding Penny Road Pub, between Old and New Sutton roads, which is tied up in court for eminent domain.
Whether the land is acquired or not, Kircher said, jumping back on the Spring Creek Greenway project is a long way off.
Its definitely on the back-burner, Kircher said.
By Amy Alderman, Triblocal.com reporter
