MainStrasse is a charming tourist district with an ailing heart. Instead of good neighbors, it has nitpickers.

        Their disputes have sucked in health inspectors and city engineers, cops and politicians. The officials are trying to stay out of the middle, but this thing is like the plague — an epidemic of ill will.

        Earlier this month, some people even named their enemy on professionally printed signs. “Sandy Arnold does not represent me,” the signs screamed in big red letters.

        Ms. Arnold is the MainStrasse resident catapulted to prominence by February's chaotic Mardi Gras festival.

        As evidence of the drunken mayhem, she took pictures of public urination. Next year's Mardi Gras was canceled by Covington officials, over the protests of innkeepers.

        Conflict has been escalating ever since.

        On one side is Ms. Arnold, her husband and her parents, Fay and Joe Mueller, along with other unhappy homeowners. They complain about cavalier barkeeps who attract riff-raff to the neighborhood and obstruct sidewalks with cafe tables.

        On the other side are various businesspeople, including Craig Johnson of the Cock and Bull English Pub.

        They say Ms. Arnold and her cohorts harass them with numerous, petty complaints about code and safety violations — anything to make them look bad.

        On Election Day, for example, police visited the Cock and Bull three times in response to complaints that alcohol was being served, Mr. Johnson says. No violations were found.

        It's tough to gauge the legitimacy of all the accusations.

        In 1998 and '99, city inspectors told the Cock and Bull to clean up, after finding uncollected garbage on the premises, records show.

        But an anonymous complaint from this October sounded dubious to me, with the caller suggesting bias on the part of city inspectors. They eat lunch at the Cock and Bull, the caller said, maybe that's why they don't see the problems.

        Government officials know what's going on: When people are feuding, their bitterness takes the form of requests for building inspections.

        Ms. Arnold's parents, the Muellers, say they do call the city when they see problems in the neighborhood.

        And apparently, people return the favor. This April, Mr. Mueller was ordered to fix his siding, roof, eaves, gutters and downspouts, city records show.

        Yet another dispute involves the Arnolds and their neighbors, Jeff Snyder and his wife Kathy, who as president of the MainStrasse Village Association, helped set up Mardi Gras.

        The Snyders put up a fence with the structural supports facing out instead of in, city records show. The Arnolds complained. Without acknowledging any mistake on his part, Mr. Snyder agreed to fix it.

        Meanwhile, the Arnolds put up their own wooden barrier, replacing one made of wrought iron.

        Mr. Arnold first applied for a building permit and asked the city to fax him a copy as proof the work was allowed.

        “Lots of problems in the neighborhood lately, so this will be a necessity,” he wrote.

        Boy. I wouldn't want to live in such an atmosphere. I'm not sure it even matters who's right.

        Reasonable people find ways to get along. They don't use the government to bash each other.

        E-mail ksamples@enquirer.com.
       

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