The street scene is pretty bleak on the north end of Beacon Avenue, complains the Beacon Hill Blog. One warehouse with a driveway across the sidewalk was vacant for months while taggers left graffiti on the garage door, and a sign hung advertising, “For Commercial Space Lease… For: Light mfg., Retail, Office.” Then a business finally set up shop: a car wash.

But on April 9, someone filed a complaint with the Department of Planning and Development, arguing that the car wash violates the city land-use rules. In areas zoned for heavy pedestrian use, including this one, “Drive-in or drive-thru businesses are prohibited.”

DPD hasn’t returned calls asking what type of action it might take.

But it seems to me that the appropriate enforcement action would be hanging the person who filed this complaint from his or her toenails and whacking them for hours with a Wiffle bat. It’s a driveway, person. Cars drive into driveways, and any business using that warehouse would likely have cars driving in and out all day. The building, as far as I can see, has no windows facing the sidewalk. No window shopping, candy shopping, or book shopping will be happening in that garage. The pedestrian potential there—at least for now, with that building in this economy—is probably as good as it’s going to get. “If the car wash gets shut down, the possibility exists that the 2507 [Beacon Avenue] site will be vacant for months again, and no one wants more vacancies in the North Beacon business district,” writes Wendi at the Beacon Hill Blog.

Here’s the scene, as captured in 360 degrees by the freaky geniuses at Google Maps.