Here is a strange story, one that, if you have the inclination, you can experience first hand.

Take a walk along Newbury Street. At Fairfield, walk towards Boylston and then take a right onto Alley 442. At about mid-block, you will come to the rear of La Famiglia Giorgio, an Italian eatery that specializes in portions that would have overwhelmed even the late John Candy.

Behind La Famiglia Giorgio there is a truck, parked so that it's rear faces Giorgio's back entrance.

Observe the truck for a few moments. A few things strike you. First, there is a dumpster in front of the Collins Tree Service cab of the truck. It seemingly is parked there permanently.

Next you will hear a humming noise coming from the truck's trailer. You will see a thick black electrical cord run from the trailer into Giorgio's itself.

This trailers reminds me of something, you will think. After some time it will come to you: silver in color, with a large compressor on top, it looks just like a large … refrigerator!

If you are patient and lucky, you may then see someone emerge from Giorgios, enter the trailer and then reemerge carrying foodstuffs for the restaurant.

For indeed, what you are looking at is indeed the kitchen's refrigerator, located not in the building as one might expect, but instead on a .. ahem .. temporary basis, outside. And that's the way things have been for years.

Now if you have ever tried to build an addition to your building, add on a deck or even tried to paint your front steps a slightly different shade of brown, you know how there are a half dozen boards, committees and groups which will pounce upon you: the Back Bay Architectural Commission, the Zoning Board of Appeal and so on.

So how does Giorgios get away with this?

What Giorgios is doing is flagrantly illegal. It's against the zoning code, it's contrary to any of the architectural guidelines enforced by the Back Bay Architectural Commission, it's a violation of the restaurant's common victualer license and it violates a host of sanitary codes.

And it's still going on.

There's a saga here. The restaurant has been cited and threatened and told to stop for the last half year.

And it's still going on.

Why is it that if I park illegally for two minutes and fail to pay the ticket, I'll never be allowed to drive again in the western hemisphere, while some restaurant can illegally build an outdoor refrigerator that violates every sanitary code devised since the Pilgrims arrived?

The answer is that, in most instances, none of the agencies enforcing these rules has the power to tell an offender to "cease and desist." Instead, all they can do is write citations. The citations can be ignored for years until they get so large that someone in the city takes notice and threatens to go to court. At that point, the offender can then buy itself a few more years by applying to the Inspectional Services Division for a permit, getting rejected and then appealing the rejection through the Zoning Board of Appeals. And then, after that is over, the offender can keep on doing it, building up even more fines and daring the city to spend the time and money to actually bring it to court.

Giorgios is just in the middle of the process — asking for a variance from the Board of Appeals. Don't hold your breath for a rapid resolution.

The solutions are straightforward. Just as traffic tickets are enforced by, in effect, putting a lien on your vehicle registration, so too tickets for other violations should be enforced by putting liens on the offender's property (for example, by adding it to the property tax). In addition, agencies such as code enforcement and inspectional services should be granted cease and desist authority, so that when violations are patently obvious, the agencies can come in and stop the violation immediately, without wading through a drawn-out enforcement process.

These are simple solutions, ones that will be soon introduced in the City Council. They deserve passage by the Council and enactment by the Mayor.