The Tavern on Grand has been ordered to get a little less flashy.

After a complaint by a nearby apartment resident, the city of St. Paul has ordered the owners of the well-known Summit Hill restaurant and watering hole to turn off their decades-old flashing marquee.

The catch: The Tavern can keep its lighting as-is if they can prove the sign was flashing before March 6, 1981. That’s when an ordinance took effect prohibiting newly built flashing signs; a sign built before that could be grandfathered in.

“This is like telling the Cathedral that it’s too tall to be on the hill,” said Kathy Lilly, who’s lived in an apartment overlooking the Tavern’s parking lot since the 1970s. “The flashing lights were always part of that building.”

Dan Niziolek, deputy director of the city’s department of safety and inspections, said the city is trying to work with the owners rather than moving toward a penalty.

“We work with owners to come to compliance; we don’t jump to come down hard. From everything I’m hearing, the owner’s going to be able to deliver.”

The conflict began in March, when a manager at the Tavern received a call from an annoyed resident across the street. Ashley LeMay, the daughter of Tavern owner Mary Ryan, later spoke to the man over the phone.

According to LeMay, the resident complained that the blinking lights, which illuminated his living room, were distracting when he was watching television. He asked that the lights not flash and that they be turned off before 2:30 a.m., just after the bar’s closing time.

The resident did not return a call from the Pioneer Press seeking comment.

“As a business, we don’t want to leave the lights on constant (without flashing) because the flashing draws more attention,” LeMay said. “I told him we were looking into whether we could just run it constant, but it’s an antique system and parts are expensive …

“Honestly we didn’t take it that serious,” LeMay admitted.

That attitude changed when a city inspector arrived March 31 and took some readings. The city mailed a letter — at first to the address next door — saying the lights were too bright, and blinking was prohibited under current ordinances. A follow-up inspection in May determined the lights were not too bright after all; LeMay said the inspector told her he’d messed up the reading.

The owners were ordered in the letter dated April 1 to turn the lights off, though there was no mention of enforcement or penalties. The penalty for noncompliance laid out in the ordinance is a misdemeanor.

After talking to local preservationists, LeMay discovered that she could get around the ordinance by being grandfathered in. She would need to prove — through affidavits from prior owners or witnesses — that the lights had been flashing prior to 1981. Lilly came forward, but Ryan said she’s hoping for more testimonials.

“They’ve been there since the 1970s when I moved,” Lilly said. “It’s an iconic part of the block. If they came along later, I would’ve noticed the change.”

Based on the building’s electrical permits, LeMay said, the lights were installed sometime between 1932 and 1947.

In 1990, owner Mary Ryan bought the bar and dubbed it the Tavern. The decade before it was a bar called Scanlan’s, and before that — dating at least to the 1940s — it was O’Connell’s, a well-known neighborhood bar and restaurant, with a dance studio above it.

Tad Vezner can be reached at 651-228-5461 or follow him: @SPnoir.