40 years ago: City decides against pawn shop in OWL neighborhood

From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for Sept. 28, 1972:

Members of the Old West Lawrence Association had strongly protested the recent opening of a pawn shop at 830 Miss., and the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission had recently come out on the side of the OWL. According to the planning commission, a “clerical error” had permitted the pawn shop to open in a house owned by Mrs. LaJean Murphree; the zoning actually prohibited such a use and commissioners this week voted unanimously not to change the zoning to permit the pawn shop, saying that would be “in effect legitimizing a clerical error made by the city.” Several planners said they would prefer that the shop be given “a decent amount of time to close the business.” In other action, the commission approved a site plan for the Sirloin Stockade to be located at Iowa and Yale, with a few recommendations including less parking and more landscaping.