In the name of progress

From the Philly Inquirer:

The Take in South Jersey | Eminent domain vs. a blue-collar dream

When you meet Dolores and Louis Achilles, sit with them in the restaurant that has been in the family for more than seven decades, listen to them talk sincerely and softly about hard work and long-held plans to pass on the business to their sons, and how all that may go for naught if the Borough of Westville uses eminent domain to seize their property in the name of progress, you can’t help but feel empathy for them.

They are a slice of blue-collar America, a family trying to hold on, not to a dream but to a reality. They would have looked quite natural in a Rockwell painting.

Instead, they are center stage – and unwittingly so – in what is now a common contemporary tale of tradition clashing with progress.

Their place is one of several businesses and homes in a section around Westville’s downtown earmarked as a redevelopment zone. That means the town would like to see these properties go and make way for new ones that would have more razzmatazz and put more tax dollars into the borough’s treasury.

It is a drama played out across the country in old cities and towns, and locally in such places as Gloucester City, Haddon Township and Westville.

Last week, the Achilles family filed suit against Westville to overturn a Borough Council decision supporting the redevelopment.

They are trying to save their place, Grabbe’s Seafood Restaurant Crab House, on Delsea Drive, a business started by Dolores’ father, Alfred Grabbe, 75 years ago and now being gradually taken over by the sons of Louis and Dolores.

“We don’t want to be dealing with lawyers and reporters and everyone else,” Louis said. “It takes away from the business, from the things we really need to do. But we want the business to be here for our sons.”