The trend, popular among Dearborn's Arab and Muslim communities, to convert garages into quasi-living spaces and indoor patios has a new defender from proposed city restrictions -- the Ron Paul-founded Campaign For Liberty spoke against the ordinance at a Dearborn Planning Commission meeting Monday night.
Detroit Free Press: The city “is dictating what you can put in your garage,” Chris McKelvie, the Wayne County coordinator for Campaign for Liberty, said to the commission.
In recent years, a growing number of residents — especially those in the Arab-American community — have transformed their garages into living spaces where they hang out, cook, smoke water pipes, and eat. Some have even installed sliding glass doors. City officials are concerned such activity is causing safety hazards, pointing to a fire in November that was started by a heater kept in a garage.
Dearborn's "garage culture" gained some national notoriety in 2011 when it was featured on the cable reality show "All-American Muslim."
