Hermosa Beach finalizes cap on number of late night bars [UPDATE]
The City Council last week finalized a cap on the number of late-night drinking establishments. The limit was set at 36, five fewer than the current total of 41 establishments that serve liquor past 11 p.m.
The resolution amending the municipal code also assigned occupancy capacities for all establishments with late-night Conditional Use Permits, or full liquor licenses. If an establishment remodels and wants to raise its occupancy capacity, the City Council now has the ability to approve or deny any such CUP amendment request.
City officials hope to roll back the total number of late-night drinking establishments over time as properties change use. City officials also will offer incentives in the hopes businesses will voluntarily reduce their late-night alcohol serving hours in exchange for city-granted entitlements, such as permits for live entertainment and dancing.
Beach Cities restaurateur Sandy Seaman said the city won’t reduce the number of late-night CUPs through the amendment as envisioned.
“No bar owner is going to sell a single stitch of an hour,” said Seaman, who favored lowering the cap to 30.
The City Council voted 4-1 to approve the “No Intensification of Late Night On-Sale Alcoholic Beverage Establishments” amendment to the municipal code. It allows the City Council to make exceptions to the cap and approve additional late-night alcohol-serving hours if it benefits the community, such as a unique business like a new hotel on The Strand, for example, city officials have said.
Mayor Pro Tem Kit Bobko cast the lone dissenting vote. Bobko said he wants to reduce the intensification of late-night alcohol sales in the city, but he called the measure “a flawed, inarticulate broad-based thing that will have unintended consequences.”
Bobko said many drinking establishments make their money in the 5-6 late night hours on the weekend, and setting a cap creates a coveted monopoly among those businesses holding late night CUPs.
Council member Peter Tucker said the amendment includes enough safeguards to allow the City Council the freedom to make case-by-case decisions as to whether modifying a business’s CUP benefits the community.
Some council members who supported the measure remained skeptical of its ability to reduce overall late-night bar hours. Mike DiVirgilio said creating a cap so the public knows the City Council is being proactive is good, but he called the amendment “an orienting document with no mechanism for change.”
“We have no way to affect the change to get to (36),” DiVirgilio said. “We just hope it will happen.”
Howard Fishman said the incentives are “kind of broad.” Fishman insisted on setting the cap at 36, as opposed to 40, as staff originally recommended. Bobko suggested setting the limit at zero.
Mayor Jeff Duclos said Hermosa Beach has one of the highest ratios of bars to residents in the county.
“We have to start somewhere and this is the start,” Duclos said.
Mark Warshaw, representing the owners of Budokan restaurant and bar and La Campagna restaurant, said because the city hasn’t approved any new late-night drinking establishments recently there is a de facto cap in place. Warshaw’s clients might like to arrange a swap of late night hours between their two businesses on Hermosa Avenue.
Warshaw suggested the city allow late-night hours to be exchanged among businesses if there was a 5-10 percent reduction in overall late-night hours.
“Most important from my clients’ point of view, the proposed ordinance and cap, which effectively prevents any existing restaurant with earlier closing hours from even applying for later hours, severely reduces the value of those businesses,” Warshaw wrote in a letter to the council.
In addition to capping the number of late-night alcohol-serving establishments, city officials would like to cap and reduce the late-night weekend headcount on Pier Plaza. The amendment now gives the city council some control over bar occupancy capacity, with the ability to deny increases after a remodel.
“We can say no,” Tucker said.
Later in the City Council meeting during a public safety update, Interim Police Chief Steve Johnson said the police and fire departments plan to crack down on some late night Pier Plaza establishments that appear to exceed their occupancy capacities.
Johnson issued a public safety memorandum in which he said that Community Service Officers will be issuing citations for smoking and littering on Pier Plaza on the weekends. The added detail is in addition to extra Hermosa Beach officers and officers from neighboring municipalities patrolling downtown following an increase in crime recently, including thefts and simple assaults.
Johnson said he wants to conduct at least five bar checks per weekend night, which necessitates 3-4 police officers as well as firefighters to check occupancy capacities during busy times.
In Johnson’s memo, he said 25 representatives from the city’s restaurants and taverns met with city officials Sept. 25 at the community center to discuss a host of downtown issues.
“While overall security in the Pier Plaza is necessary, the majority of issues appear to be linked to Sharkeez and the American Junkie restaurants,” Johnson wrote in his memo. “With that in mind, there will be greater focus on these establishments to work within their CUP requirements.”
A representative of American Junkie declined comment on Johnson’s memo. Ron Newman, co-owner of Sharkeez, said he was surprised Johnson raised questions about his business’s security.
“Our door people and bar staff, they’re really trained well for over-intoxication and underage and behavioral problems,” Newman said.
“In the restaurant and bar meeting with the city, they said we have the best controls and training, from our strict dress code to how we check IDs to controlling capacity. We even passed out our dress code sign. I’m really surprised they put us in that category,” Newman said. “We do do a lot of business. So there is going to be more activity with our operation. Some places are busy only three days a week.”
In a memo to the City Council, City Manager Tom Bakaly said the city staff will conduct audits of downtown establishments with late night CUPs.
Editor’s Note: Comments about and from American Junkie and Sharkeez were added to this story Wednesday morning.