Brent Harold / Journal

“Wellfleet is runnin’ from Dunkin” went the headline for the story reporting our precedent- setting new bylaw banning formula restaurants (chains, franchises, non-local clones). The town approved it in last April’s town meeting and the attorney general recently signed off on it.

Indeed, it was the sudden appearance in our very midst of a Dunkin’ Donuts that motivated the prompt—panicked, actually—action on the part of the planning board to make sure it was the last such surprise.

Now George Zografos, Capewide DD czar, has applied for an enhancement to the controversial restaurant, a drive-thru window.

We may be running from Dunkin’, but it’s still running after us.

In the mid-1990s, Wellfleet passed a Comprehensive Plan, which made it clear that chains were inimical to town character. We had no interest in being turned into the McTown that most other places were being turned into. But it was widely believed that as a market we are too small and too desolate in the long off-season to look exploitable to the big chains. DD shoehorned itself in the 1990s as far as Eastham but the plague would come no farther. Or so we wishfully thought.

In 2007 Dennis did its best to discourage fastfood clones, requiring some cosmetic changes , but stopping short of an outright ban. By 2010 Wellfleet still had nothing on the books. Hence the ease with which Mr. Zografos, without so much as a special permit, established his beachhead on the outer Cape and immediately set about re-branding us. Summer visitors flocked, no doubt happy to see the familiar suburban imagery. Some locals claimed that they were happy to follow the rest of America in running on styrofoam cups of Dunkin’.

At first the planning board was stymied by the belief that had limited the efforts of other towns that an outright ban would be shot down by the AG. (As ridiculous as it sounds, you can no more redline a huge corporation than a poor minority family.) Then an enterprising chairman discovered that York, Maine, had in fact passed just such an outright ban and that the AG of Maine, a state operating no less than our own under the constitution, had approved it.

The anti-formula bylaw passed overwhelmingly in town meeting to a general sense of relief, belated closing of the barn door though it was.

On December 1 the zoning board of appeals entertained a well- attended hearing on whether it should grant a special permit for a drive-thru. Such a permit is to be granted only if the board finds that the benefits of the drive-thru outweigh the disadvantages. It was soon clear what those at the hearing thought about that, both abutters and others. Speaker after speaker, letter after letter read aloud, spoke of congestion, litter, obnoxious lighting, noise, harm to local businesses, quality of life in general.

But really the overwhelming verdict on pros and cons had already been pronounced in the passing of the new bylaw. While it does not legally apply to DD, which was grandfathered, the town meeting vote clearly amounts to a referendum not just on the future of formula businesses in town but on the existing Dunkin’, which had in fact scared us into coming up with the bylaw in the first place.

Late in the proceedings, Zografos, having sat there all evening listening to the outpouring of negative sentiment, rose to address the hearing. Characterizing his life in classic American rags-to-riches terms, he insisted that he was not a bad person and cared deeply about our town. In bringing his product to Wellfleet he had only our best interests at heart.

Surely, said one person to him afterwards, given all he had heard, if he really cared about our town, wouldn’t he now withdraw his petition for a drive-thru?

In fact it occurs to this starry- eyed idealist that Mr. Z has an opportunity to do something truly remarkable in the annals of capitalism: in response to what this town has voted as our best interests, he could go a step farther and offer to close down the existing restaurant.

Wouldn’t that be something?