The city Planning Commission denied a proposed 200-square-foot sidewalk caf\u00e9 at 710 Beach Club, citing that the extension of the beach bar into the sidewalk could be detrimental to the public health, safety or welfare, particularly for residents living in nearby condos. “On the one hand, we do have an area that is mixed use,” said commission chairman Eric Naslund. “This particular property is in a commercial zone and it does have permits for an entertainment venue. I think anytime you have situations where people are trying to live in a residential setting in the evening, there\u2019s going to be a natural conflict there.” Public testimony on the topic suggested that conflict already exists, because of what residents deem as excessive noise emanating from within and around the beach bar across the street from their condos. In a press conference this month, Pacific Beach Planning Group member Scott Chipman called attention to what he called the high alcohol-related crime rate and proliferation of alcohol permits in the vicinity. He said the expansion of the sidewalk caf\u00e9 would increase the alcohol-related problems, pedestrian traffic congestion and noise in the area. “Pacific Beach, on a six-year average, has been the most violent community in the region. It\u2019s time to send a message that we\u2019re done with the violence. We\u2019re done with the crime, the DUIs,” Chipman said. “The encroachment onto the sidewalk is bad for the neighborhood. It\u2019s bad for our walkability and it\u2019s bad for handicapped access. This is an area that is already seriously congested and has more alcohol problems than most of the city.” 710 Beach Club owner Scott Slaga, however, as-sured the Planning Commission that his intent for the sidewalk caf\u00e9 would be for food service only \u2014\u00a0not alcohol \u2014 and the caf\u00e9 would close at 10 p.m. along with the closure of the roll-up garage doors on the front fa\u00e7ade. “My roll-up doors close at 10,” Slaga said. “My sidewalk caf\u00e9 would have to close at 10. Those doors and that caf\u00e9 will be commensurate with each other. [They would] open at the same time, and when live music occurs, the sidewalk caf\u00e9 shuts down.” Some commissioners emphasized the distinction between land use and alcohol licensing, urging their fellow colleagues not to step into the jurisdiction of the state Alcohol Beverage Control. “A lot of testimony took place about the distribution of alcohol permitting and how many are already there. There\u2019s a fine line between what we do and what ABC does, and I don\u2019t want to get over into ABC\u2019s business,” said commissioner Mi-chael Smiley, who voted against the motion favoring the project\u2019s appeal. “There was a preponderance of testimony talking about noise, urination, climbing over the fences \u2014 all sorts of bad things \u2014 and the sidewalk caf\u00e9 isn\u2019t there yet. They\u2019re talking about existing conditions.” Some commissioners argued that \u2014 from a land-use perspective \u2014 the caf\u00e9 would bottleneck already-dense pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk. “It\u2019s not the 12 people sitting outside on the sidewalk caf\u00e9,” said commissioner Tim Golba. “It\u2019s what is going to potentially happen after hours. I\u2019m not looking at it as the number; I\u2019m looking at it more in the global sense of its setting. There are just packs of people walking there. This is the main thoroughfare to the beach. I\u2019m afraid once that sidewalk caf\u00e9 gets in there, it\u2019s going to throttle the ability to move quickly and not congregate.” Golba said passersby might gather around the beach bar to listen to the borrowed music from inside, creating more nuisance noise, blocking pedestrian access and thereby affecting residents\u2019 quality of life and visitors\u2019 safety. Although the commissioners claimed to be in full support of sidewalk caf\u00e9s in general, they voted in favor of the appeal because of the unique conditions in this particular mixed-use area where residents and commercial businesses coexist. “Our weather is remarkable, so we should be encouraging these types of sidewalk caf\u00e9s and these types of activities,” said commissioner Susan Peerson. “It\u2019s clear that when you live in a neighborhood in a beach community and there are these activities, a part of our role is to make it a safe environment and welcoming environment for people. I\u2019m concerned that that cannot happen in this situation with the proposal of the sidewalk caf\u00e9.”<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The city Planning Commission denied a proposed 200-square-foot sidewalk caf\u00e9 at 710 Beach Club, citing that the extension of the beach bar into the sidewalk could be detrimental to the public health, safety or welfare, particularly for residents living in nearby condos. “On the one hand, we do have an area that is mixed use,” […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":274073,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11559","_seopress_titles_title":"Sidewalk caf\u00e9 application denied by planners for 710 Beach Club","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11559],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-274072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beach-bay-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}