City steps up nuisance business laws

New amendment expands law beyond late-night operators, wipes out signature requirements

01/25/2012

The city is changing how it reviews operating licenses for businesses that get complaints from neighbors. Last week, the city council pushed through a series of amendments aimed at tightening Chicago’s deleterious impact and public nuisance ordinance — a set of regulations that give residents in Chicago a platform for “addressing negative quality of life and public safety concerns in their neighborhoods” caused by new liquor license applicants or existing liquor establishments.
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Web apps track snow plows progress around Chicago

In case you missed it, it's snowing today

01/20/2012

Forecasts predict somewhere between 4 to 8 inches of snow in Chicago through Friday evening. The plows are out working to clear the streets and ease the evening commute. According to the city's website about 183 snow plows, or 50 percent of the city’s snow fighting equipment, are currently working on the main routes. After those are clear, the plows will head to the residential streets.
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Chicago ward remap passes: 43rd Ward emerges whole, but new ward crammed in

Ald. Michele Smith credits Lincoln Park activists’ support with saving ward

01/19/2012

After months of backroom wheeling and dealing, Chicago’s ward boundaries have been officially redrawn, and Lincoln Park is nearly intact within the 43rd Ward.The 43rd Ward’s boundaries have shifted only slightly, moving slightly further west to Racine rather than Sheffield, and losing a bit of ground to on the ward’s south end. But Ald. Michele Smith trumpeted the final boundaries as a victory.
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Swanky Streeterville retirement home nixed

Developer cites failure of the Clare in decision not to move forward with community at 850 N. Lake Shore Drive

01/18/2012

Last week, the resident group Streeterville Organization of Active Residents posted a message on its website stating that it had recently received a letter from Integrated Development Group LLC, in which the firm announced it would discontinue plans to develop its property at 850 N. Lake Shore Drive into a high-end senior living residence.
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Lincoln Elementary plan still up in air

School pushes CPS for some solutions to over-enrollment problems by March

01/18/2012

With the spring semester now underway, parents and faculty at Abraham Lincoln Elementary are growing restless as the district scrambles to solve the school's overcrowding issues. Within the scope of the Chicago Public Schools system, Lincoln Elementary, a kindergarten through eighth grade school on the city's North Side, suffers from an almost inverted ailment.
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Chicago ward remap seems close to approval, but remains unseen

01/18/2012

Chicago's political battle lines are being redrawn, and the new aldermanic ward boundaries increasingly look like they'll be along the lines of a map presented by the city council's Black Caucus.
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Elderly man beaten by desk clerk

01/18/2012

Police and investigators from the city's Department on Aging are looking into an incident involving an elderly man who was allegedly attacked by a night desk clerk in his building on the Near North Side.
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Tickling the ivories for charity

Heart of the 'hood

01/18/2012

If you're not doing anything Friday night, come on over to pianist Erwin Helfer's birthday party. Helfer is celebrating b-day No. 76 on Jan. 20, and he's spending his big night performing a concert benefitting Lincoln Park Village, a nonprofit organization helping people age 50-plus continue to live in their homes.
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Rescues of the Week

01/18/2012

Henery is an energetic 2-year-old Blue Heeler mix who absolutely loves people and is also great with other dogs! In late October, Henery was transferred to PAWS Chicago after he was left at Animal Care & Control as an unclaimed stray.
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Don’t divide us, Lincoln Park neighbors tell aldermen

Passion, political show of force mark ward remap hearing

01/12/2012

Updated 1/18/12 4:35 p.m.
DePaul University’s Student Center was packed to the brim yesterday evening as 43rd Ward residents came out in force to express their concerns at this 2012’s first Chicago ward remap public hearing.
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