Despite the slings and arrows, the outrageous fortune, the anonymous
complainant, the governmental red tape, the Hoodland Fruit Stand survives.

Cliff Davis, 72, the seven-year proprietor of the 42-year-old iconic business in
Brightwood, is moving – and it’s a story of Mountain determination.

After all these years of operation, suddenly the fruit stand had a code
problem. The county got after Davis, he tried to solve it, but finally gave up.

“Two trips (to Oregon City) and a bunch of voice mails didn’t get me
anywhere,” Davis said, grinning sardonically. “So I decided to go somewhere
else.”

The new location is at the former Welches Garden Center across Hwy. 26 from
the Clackamas County Bank.

“It’s a sizeable increase in rent,” he said. “So I won’t make any money. But I’ll
hang on.”

Davis was confronted with the problem through a letter from the county in
August last year accusing him of building without a permit. He responded,
saying the building had been there for more than 40 years.

Closing over the winter, as usual, Davis returned to open his fruit stand when
a March 11 letter from the county informed him he had to go before a Land
Use Review Board.

“That wasn’t an option,” he said. “That’s about a 4 to 5 grand deal.”

The problem, according to the county, was that Davis had put in a free-
standing floor which changed the code required for the stand.

“I told them I had put in the floor because the health department said I had
to,” Davis said. “That didn’t matter, so I told them I’d take it out.”

It didn’t end there. The county added another obstacle, saying he’d never
make it past the review board without a traffic investigation, and, there was a
lack of parking space.

Davis was also foiled in attempting to find out who had filed the complaint.
The county claimed it was an anonymous complaint, and when he attempted
to press the issue by filing a freedom of information request he was told that
person wasn’t in the office that particular day.

That was enough for Davis. There was only one way to move forward and that
was to move to Welches.

His son, Scott Davis, were ripping down the old stand as The Mountain Times
went to press. His plan for the new location is to be open by Mother’s Day
weekend.

What did he learn?

“Having gone through the state agencies to begin with, I discovered there
were other agencies I should have been in communication with,” he said. “So,
I learned to call every agency, state, county, check them all, up to but not
including the Canadian government.