Flamingogate

A restaurant owner near Baltimore staged the protest you see in the photo above when an $800/year tax was levied by the city on the restaurant's display of a large pink flamingo statue.  Following the protest, the city halved the tax "using different geometry" to measure the bird.  Three things:

1. What the heck is "different geometry," and why wasn't it used in the first place?
2.  Why is the restaurant owner satisfied with this?  He is still paying $400 a year to have a bird statue on his own property.
3.  If there's "different geometry" available, can they different-geomotry that tax all the way down to zero?

Hat tip to LewRockwell.com.