Council Tables Restaurant Proposals

By Oliver Lukacs
Staff Writer

June 27 -- The City Council last week tabled a menu of recommendations to curb retail stores and boost restaurants Downtown, but not before expressing concerns about public safety and the proliferation of alcohol.

Hammered out by the Promenade Uses task Force, the recommendations include eliminating the cap on the number of restaurants in the Downtown, expanding outdoor dining on the Third Street Promenade and relaxing regulations governing alcohol permits and sales.

While council members did not debate the proposals Tuesday, the questions asked from the dais gave a glimpse of some of their prevailing concerns.

Several council members, for example, gave a sobering reception to recommendations that would lift the cap on the number of alcohol permits allowed per block, allow alcohol to constitute 35 percent of each restaurant's total gross revenue and streamline the alcohol permitting process by replacing public review by the Planning Commission with administrative approval by City staff.

Mayor Pro Tem Kevin McKeown worried that lifting the per block percent
cap on alcohol serving businesses would create "an over-concentration" of
drinking spots on the Promenade.

Assuaging McKeown’s concerns, Andy Agle, the City’s assistant director of Planning and Community Development, noted that "right now we're not even close” to reaching either the per-block or overall alcohol caps.

The shortage in restaurants has kept the number of alcohol permits down, according to planning staff. As of February 2003 there were only 59 food uses within the Downtown out of the allowed 76, and just 31 on the Promenade out of the allowed 52, according to the staff report.

McKeown also questioned whether the restaurants should be granted the 35
percent alcohol limit on total gross revenue, noting that the council and Planning Commission had capped it at 25 percent in the past.

Council members, however, did not indicate how they stood on a controversial proposal to eliminate public process for alcohol permits.

Last month, the Planning Commission proposed a compromise that would allow them to retain oversight, rather than allow planning staff to review the items administratively.

Under the commission’s proposed change, alcohol permits would be placed on the consent calendar and be voted on without debate or public input unless a commissioner pulls it from consent or a member of the public asks to speak.

Some council members also raised concerns about expanding outdoor dining on the Promenade to curbs, alleyways and the three center court areas to create a more lively, European-like atmosphere.

By talking up more public space, council members worried that the new dining areas could impede emergency service access and curb the free speech rights of street performers.

But staff assured them that only one spot used by performers would be lost and agreed to develop a more definitive "Promenade encroachment zone" that restaurants would have to avoid when applying for outdoor dining
permits, which under the recommendations would also be administratively
approved by City staff.

Councilman Michael Feinstein worried that adding outdoor dining and making alcohol more readily available, along with the recommendation to add dining on the second floors, would generate noise, impacting neighbors.

The City Council will further discuss these concerns on August 17 along with
the other recommendations, which include adding public restrooms, developing
modernized movie theaters with stadium seating and revitalizing the
alleyways for dining and events.