Rick Neale

FLORIDA TODAY

MELBOURNE — A colorful graffiti mural on the side of Chez Quan's — which was painted without a permit — has fallen under City Hall fire.

Code compliance officials have issued a Sunday deadline for Chez Quan's to remove the mural, under threat of fines that could escalate up to $500 per day. The artwork was co-created by Christopher Maslow, a well-known Melbourne-Miami artist, and Mark Gilliam of Low Tide Tattoos & Art Gallery, who painted the Backwater Restaurant blue jay-orange juice mural.

"I'd like to capture attention, because we're going for a certain vibe here. And I'm already fighting the fact that we're on Aurora Road," said Chez Quan's co-owner Adam Woodworth, seated in his dining room.

"I don't want to be a typical Thai restaurant. It's a little urban. It's a little more 'fresh' feeling, I would say. All of this artwork in here is for sale," Woodworth said.

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Woodworth and his mother, Quan Rutirasiri, opened Chez Quan's as a takeout restaurant in January 2014 inside a storefront that previously housed failed pizza joints. The Thai-Latin eatery added a dining room during an expansion last September, and Woodworth hopes to add outdoor patio seating alongside the mural.

He did not obtain a City Hall permit for the mural, which features large versions of Maslow (Slow) and Gilliam's (Deps) graffiti tag names. Other violations, according to Code Enforcement Official Mark Herold:

• The mural cannot cover more than 10 percent of the wall it is painted on.

• Text cannot comprise more than 10 percent of the mural.

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Murals in downtown Eau Gallie and downtown Melbourne can cover an entire wall, so long as a permit is obtained and the Architectural Review Board approves.

Woodworth said he did not know these details until a code compliance officer talked with him last month.

He said he is considering two courses of action by Sunday. One, he will cover the mural with paneling while he seeks City Hall permission. Or, Maslow will whitewash the mural and apply for a new art design.

The Florida Institute of Technology has commissioned Maslow to paint a 90-foot-long panther mural on The Baby Patch building, at the corner of New Haven Avenue and Waverly Place. He also painted the murals at the Eau Gallie Square bandshell and Eau Gallie Florist. The Florida Tech mural is part of Melbourne Main Street's downtown public art project.

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During the 1980s, Rutirasiri owned Quan’s Walk and Roll Thai Restaurant in Satellite Beach. She said Chez Quan's artwork "brightens up" Aurora Road and draws the attention of potential customers.

"How do you make a street that's dead come alive if you don't try something that's attractive?" Rutirasiri asked.

In Eau Gallie, code enforcement officials and the Architectural Review Board recently ruled that a Rick's Furniture Consignment Sales mural was unprofessional and violated city rules. Owner Rick Hester appealed last month, and the Melbourne Planning and Zoning Board overturned the ARB decision.

Contact Neale at 321-242-3638, rneale@floridatoday.com or follow @RickNeale1 on Twitter