KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Knoxville City Council could overturn a zoning decision regarding a business that garnered dozens of complaints about the smell it produces.
Liquid Environmental Solutions on Galaway Street works in non-hazardous liquid waste management, providing grease trap services to restaurants and grocery stores while also providing food waste services. But, according to some neighbors, it produces a rancid smell.
"The smell is not contained," said Amber Eldridge during a public hearing, whose husband works near the site. "I have shown up there before, to bring my husband and my brother lunch, where the guys have been puking in garbage cans while they're trying to eat lunch. It smells like death."
According to a resolution, on Dec. 14, 2023, the Knoxville zoning administrator made the determination Liquid Environmental Solutions was not in compliance with city code that says a processing facility's work must be done in a "completely enclosed building." Then in June 2024, the company filed an appeal and the Board of Zoning Appeals denied it the next month. The company then appealed to the city council on July 31, 2024.
Tanner Jessel, a neighbor in the Parkridge neighborhood, said he'd been fighting the stench for around 8 years.
"It's an overwhelming powerful stench that you can actually taste in your mouth sometimes," he said. "In 2016, when they moved in, they took over an existing small mom-and-pop operation and then they bumped it out, they expanded it unlawfully outdoors."
According to the appeal, Liquid Environmental Solutions believes the director of plan reviews and inspections misinterpreted the city code that applies to outdoor storage tanks at its facility.
"Based on this erroneous interpretation, the Director is demanding LES construct, at great expense, a new building covering LES's outdoor, fully enclosed storage tanks," LES's attorney Jeremy Greenhouse wrote in the appeal. "Not only is the director's interpretation inconsistent with the plain language of the zoning ordinance, it also directly contradicts the interpretation made by Knoxville's Plans Review and Inspections Department in 2017 - based upon the same facts - when the department approved LES's expansion of the facility to its current size."
According to a letter sent to the company from Peter Ahrens, the city's director of the Plans Review and Inspections Department, the zoning review was disapproved.
"Use is an expansion of process beyond previous tenant. Applicant will need to provide detailed information regarding operation to ensure that use meets the performance standards and requirements for this property. All product delivery storage or transport must be enclosed or encapsulated at all times," the letter said.
If councilmembers pass the resolution, it would overturn the zoning administrator's determination. They are expected to discuss the resolution Nov. 12 at 6 p.m.