The Zoning Board of Adjustment (ZBA) yesterday cleared the way for local ice cream producer and retailer Little Baby’s Ice Cream to open shop on the 4900 block of Catharine Street, across the street from Cedar Park. If all goes as planned, the shop should be open by April 1.

Little Baby’s has been wooing Cedar Park residents for a while now and even sent them an “open love letter” on Valentine’s Day. The Cedar Park Neighbors civic association loved them back with a letter of support to the ZBA, which late yesterday provided Little Baby’s with the necessary permit to convert the storefront at 4903 Catharine into the company’s first retail shop west of the Schuylkill.

The company got a massive boost in the form of a 5-year, $50,000 loan from The Enterprise Center to expand into Cedar Park.

Little Baby’s Ice Cream is handmade in their production facility in East Kensington. Their dairy comes from Trickling Springs Creamery in Chambersburg, Penna. Here is a great profile on the three musicians who turned their passion for ice cream into a successful business.

Trash collectors have a tough job and usually they are professional and thorough, but not always. Here’s what happened to a neighbor, Kelly, this morning:

“It appears our trash [collector] can get away with tossing your can all of the place including through your windshield. Today on the 5000 block of Catharine Street, we received an early morning [visit] from our neighbors to inform us the trash workers had thrown a trash can into our windshield. Now I have to wait for Waste Management who only lets you leave a recording to mail us a claim form. I have little hope they will reimburse us… I also doubt my report to 311 will do anything. And thanks to this a day of work was lost and my eldest missed school.”

Kelly adds that neighbors on both sides of her house saw it happen and came to her door to let her know. She says that everything was tossed about and it was not the wind.

UPDATE (3/7): Here’s a response from Philly311 we received this morning:

@blulotuspr @westphillylocal This was forwarded to us and the Streets Dept yesterday. We escalated and it is under investigation. Thanks!

— Philly311 (@philly311) March 7, 2013

Some of you may have noticed a new pharmacy next to recently opened Café Renata and just across the street from CVS near 43rd and Locust. So here’s the scoop – Aspire Rx, a smal independent pharmacy, has relocated to Locust from 45th Street.

OK, at first this seems like a really bad idea – small, independent pharmacy moves across the street from giant pharmacy/store. Folks on some local West Philly list-servs thought the idea seemed so bad that it must be some kind of front for something else.

It’s not. Aspire’s owner, Hetal Chudasama, said Aspire offers things that CVS doesn’t, such as compounding services, lower prices and serious customer care. They also offer free delivery, pet medications and some adult vaccines. She moved Aspire from 45th Street to Locust to the former location of a small Asian grocery to take advantage of the ample foot traffic.

By the way, Chudasama, a resident of West Philadelphia for eight years, knows what she’s talking about when it comes to her big box neighbor. After graduating from the University of the Science’s Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, she worked at – where else – CVS.

Aspire is open Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Friday 9-3 and Saturday 10-3. It’s closed Sundays.

Spruce Hill residents are invited to attend a second meeting to guide future development decisions in their community. This Action Planning Workshop will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 27, at the Wilson Student Center on the campus of the University of the Sciences (42nd & Woodland).

The session will again be led by Jennifer Hurley, a professional planner hired by the Spruce Hill Community Trust. Residents will be asked to confirm their community vision, brainstorm about ways to make it a reality, and plan next steps.

This meeting follows up on one in December that drew an unexpected turnout of about 90 people who were asked to indicate their likes and dislikes about directions that development could take in Spruce Hill. Hurley has taken that material and pulled it together in a presentation that may be viewed on the Spruce Hill Community Association’s website.

The Spruce Hill neighborhood boundaries run from Market Street to Woodland Avenue, 38th Street to 46th Street.

For more information about the planning workshop, contact Barry Grossbach, chair of the trust, at b.grossbach@gmail.com or at 215-349-7825.

About 90 people participated in the first meeting about the future development of the Spruce Hill neighborhood. (Photo from Spruce Hill Community Association’s Facebook page).

A man died on the second floor of the rowhome at 1257 S. 46th St. overnight.

A neighbor was killed and two others were injured in a house fire overnight on the 1200 block of S. 46th Street. The fire broke out around midnight and was put out about 20 minutes later. The victim, a man in his 30s, was found on the second floor and was pronounced dead at the scene. Two other men who were at the house when the fire started were able to escape.

We spoke to a next-door neighbor this morning who said that the attached row home at 1257 S. 46th is a boarding house that includes five units. The woman said she had some damage in her ceiling where firemen broke through to ensure the fire didn’t spread to adjacent buildings.

Apparently, the house was in pretty bad condition, with portable oil and electric heaters in use and no working smoke alarms, Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers told NBC10.

A West Philly resident, Nati Passow, was bitten by a dog last night while he was biking down Larchwood Avenue between 44th and 45th Streets. He is looking for the dog’s owner to see if the dog was up to date on all of his shots, in order to avoid a series of rabies shots. Here’s what Nati wrote us in an email:

On Saturday night around 9:45 I was biking down Larchwood between 45th and 44th. A woman was walking her dog and the dog ran at me. She called after him (that’s how I know the name), but Clyde proceeded to bite my leg. It’s not too bad of a bite, but it broke skin, so I went to HUP, and because I didn’t know the dog, they started me on the rabies vaccine. I’d really prefer not to have to get the remaining 3 doses, and they said that if I track down the owners and learn that Clyde has gotten all of his shots, I’m good to go.

If you know someone in the area with a dog named Clyde, please put them in touch with me. It was a very quick interaction, but I believe Clyde was a big dog, slender build, with a lighter colored coat.

If you know anyone in the neighborhood who has a dog named Clyde that fits the provided description, please email Nati as soon as possible at npassow@gmail.com, as he will need to return to HUP in three days for the next dose.