It's been many years since the nightclub Tongue and Groove on Old Stonington Road on the outskirts of Mystic was shuttered.

The big nasty pink tongue sign out front was long ago obliterated by spray paint. One of the front doors looks boarded up, the landscaping is overgrown and the parking lot filled with weeds.

Trash collects around the grounds. Some homeless people were living out back for a while, until police moved them along.

It is not only abandoned and dilapidated, but I would say it seems to meet quite a few of the conditions of Stonington's 2010 blight ordinance, a fire waiting to happen, a clear contribution "to a decline or diminution in property values on proximate properties," as the town law would have it.

It's hard to imagine an insurance company issuing a policy for it. Insurance cancellation is another automatic trigger for the blight ordinance.

It's the most dilapidated property I know of around Mystic. If the blight ordinance doesn't apply here, then when and how?

That apparent diminution of property values for surrounding property owners worsened this week, when the out-of-state owners of the unsightly property raised the stakes in what seems to be a play to profit from the successful new restaurant across the street, Dog Watch BBQ.

On Thursday morning, two workers began erecting a crude chainlink fence across the front of the abandoned building property, facing the street.

David Eck, a Dog Watch co-owner, told me when I tracked him down Thursday that he proactively approached the owners of the empty building, before opening his restaurant, and offered to lease the unused parking lot.

They could not come to financial terms and, soon after, the owners put up boards and no trespassing signs across the parking lot entrance.

They also tried to charge people $10 to park in the lot, Eck said.

But since there is ample parking along the street, no one paid.

Eck said the other neighbors of his new restaurant have been cooperative and helpful.

The abandoned nightclub is owned by a corporation, The Papas Group of Bedford, N.H.

It has been listed for sale for many years. The asking price is now $860,000.

The now-vacant and sprawling wooden building originally was Sailor Ed's, once a popular restaurant specializing in shore dinners.

It was used for several unsuccessful businesses over the years, the final being Tongue and Groove.

Tim Papakostas, one of the building owners, told me they don't think the building is dilapidated and noted it was painted recently.

He said the fence is being installed because people have been dumping on the property, and not because of the parking related to the new restaurant across the street.

He ended the conversation when I asked if he has insurance on the building, what he called a personal question he does not have to answer.

I got Papakostas' number from Jason Vincent, Stonington town planner, who said the building owner had reached out to town officials earlier this month about opening a new restaurant in the building.

Papakostas did not mention any plans like that before ending our conversation.

Vincent said the town investigates blight complaints and will begin a review of the Old Stonington Road property.

But he said the blight ordinance, which calls for daily fines of up to $100, can be difficult to enforce.

It may seem obvious in some circumstances that the condition of a property is diminishing property values around it, for instance, but that may be hard to prove conclusively, he said.

It seems to me if the town can't do something about a building left empty for years on end, attracting homeless squatters and trash dumpers, that the town's six-year-old blight ordinance could use work.

This is the opinion of David Collins.

d.collins@theday.com