Jason Roberts has spent the last 20 years trying to make Dallas a much hipper town. And, at every turn, the city has pushed back. It’s like I once wrote: Roberts, the Oak Cliff urbanist-turned-Bishop Arts entrepreneur, figured out a long time ago that “sometimes you gotta break a few of Dallas City Hall’s more antiquated laws to make a better Dallas.”

That was 10 years ago. Now let me take you all the way back to Oct. 5.

On that night less than three weeks ago, one of the city’s code compliance officers walked into one of the four Bishop Arts businesses Roberts co-owns, the New Orleans-style bar and restaurant Revelers Hall, which holds 65 patrons, not including the brass bands that regularly fill its calendar. An officer handed a manager a notice of violation, which alleged the venue was operating as an “unpermitted use” and was creating “loud and disturbing noises and vibrations.”

The noise thing is just silly when you consider that Revelers Hall is the kind of place where grinning passersby stop long enough to shoot photos and videos through the usually wide-open front doors. Chad West, the City Council member for North Oak Cliff, told me Wednesday that “it’s literally the only place my parents ask to visit when they come to town.”

The “unpermitted use” thing is a little more complicated. 

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