The Wilhelm Schnitzel Fallacy

Actually I read this three times and I still don't know what it means.

If he can get the zoning changed, Stover’s adjusted plan calls for running a Japanese grocery store as well as a coffee shop in the building, which is owned by his boss at Hana’s. This entrepreneurial vision has its Facebook fans, but has not been met with smiles by neighborhood groups.

Curmudgeons, in Stover’s view, they oppose his plans not because they have anything against coffee – PJ’s coffee shop founder Phyllis Jordan stood up at the meeting to speak against Stover’s plan – but, typically, because they see spot zoning as a slippery slope.

You allow one variance and the next thing you know, everyone wants one.

That’s the thinking Stover tagged as the Wilhelm Schnitzel Fallacy, a reference esoteric enough to snap Planning Commission members out of their mid-afternoon reverie and start some meeting goers googling on their PDA’s.

To little avail. While the “content-free” Uncyclopedia contains a satirical reference to Wilhelm Schnitzel in a long burst of frat house humor involving Kaiser Wilhelm, the Fallacy goes unexplained.

Clearly, more serious detective work was in order.

Reached by phone, Stover offered no apologies and at least a partial explanation of Schnitzel’s Fallacy:

“I come from comedy and I wanted to make the point, so I just came up with an absurd name,” he said.

And the point, exactly? The fallacy? That spot zoning doesn’t have to open the door on a million similar requests, Stover explained.

If I understand even a little of this properly, and I'm not sure I do, the Wilhelm Schnitzel Fallacy can describe any theory the person citing it wants to claim is too stupid to merit an opposing argument. I actually like this tool and hope to apply it to all sorts of crap in the future. Take HBO's Treme, for instance. Please. (Ha! See what I did there?)

Anyway, the real reason I bring this up is I notice this proposed business is apparently some sort of Japanese-grocery-coffee shop. A few years back, we expressed our concern that every new business opening on Magazine Street appeared to be of either the coffee bar, gelateria, or sushi restaurant variety. It was only a matter of time before they began to merge. The only surprise is that it's happening on Carrollton. Of course Magazine is all about Pinkberry and Pilates these days so the trend is set anew.