Roof Top bar patrons score with council

The City Council on Tuesday granted de facto approval of a public roof top bar that staff and Planning Commissioners said had been operating illegally.

City officials gave their blessings to the popular bar atop La Casa del Camino and voted unanimously to allow food and beverage service to continue while a conditional use permit for the bar is processed by the commission. An application must be submitted by Dec.

“I don’t think anyone here wants to close the roof top, but we need to get back on track,” Councilwoman Cheryl Kinsman said. The operation of the roof top bar was virtually guaranteed by the council’s verbal support and directions to the planning commission to process a revised CUP that included roof top service for up to 125 people, plus staff. No vested rights were forfeited by the applicant.

“We need to give the commission strict guidelines to make this work,” Mayor Toni Iseman said.

Hotel owner Chris Keller previously appeared before the commission in July asking for a clarification of the terms of an existing conditional use permit. The commission reiterated its intent that a public bar was not one of the approved uses.

“That is what the applicant is appealing,” Community Development Director John Montgomery said.

Keller’s attorney, Lawrence Nokes, claimed the clarification was actually a new conditional use permit that substantially affected Keller’s vested rights, in particular the operation of a public bar.

“It was quite unnerving to think that five years of hard work could be swept away from you,” Keller told the council. “The hotel is popular, but it doesn’t make a lot of money and we need all the revenue sources.”

Planning Commissioner Norman Grossman advised Keller to apply for a new permit for the bar.

“I told them, come in and we’ll look at it without prejudice,” Grossman said.

However, Keller opted instead to appeal the commission’s clarification to the council.

“The roof top has always been used, but it was restricted to hotel guests,” Montgomery said. “Staff and the Planning Commission feel [roof] activities were limited to special events and for the use of [hotel] guests.”

Mayor Pro Tem Jane Egly agreed with the planning commission that the hotel did not have approval for the roof top bar.

“Popularity isn’t the same thing as going through the process,” Egly told the standing room-only audience, the vast majority of them supporters of the bar.

All told, five CUPs have been issued since Keller bought the dilapidated hotel and began restoring it to bygone glory. It has heritage status.

The bar is an unqualified success and supporters overflowed the City Council Chambers.

“Take a look around this room,” Mayor Iseman said before the hearing started. “If everyone is going to talk, we might as well have Chris [Keller] send out for food.”

Almost every person in the audience raised their hands when Iseman asked how many of them like the view from the roof top bar, how many like the venue, like the ambiance, the fresh air and love the history.

“Okay,” she said, “You’ve all testified on it and I don’t want to hear [more] about it.”

Councilman Kelly Boyd proposed limiting speakers to the hotel owner, his architect and his attorney.

Like that was going to happen.

However, the general public was limited to two minutes each at the microphone, speaking either for or against the appeal, and Iseman laid down some rules of conduct.

“I am not happy when neighbors’ concerns are discounted,” Iseman said. “They are impacted. Be respectful. And if I hear any NIMBY, I will turn off the microphone.”

Not everyone is enamored of the bar.

“We got complaints from neighbors as well as the Planning Commission,” Montgomery said.

No commissioners attended the meeting and only three neighbors voiced objections to the project.

“The intensification of use of the hotel roof top has created a severe burden and negative effect on the heavily impacted Flatlanders neighborhood,” said Tom Girvin, on behalf of the neighbors association.

“I ask you to keep in mind that the subject under consideration tonight is not a popularity contest. It is a question of acting in accordance with the laws and ordinances of the city of Laguna Beach.”

He said approval of the appeal would signal architects and developers that their projects need not comply with the rules.

The neighborhood association expects the proprietor and owners of the hotel to abide by city ordinances in their effort to save the roof top bar, according to Girvin, who supported an application for a revised CUP and a parking plan.

“I think we are going to see neighborhood parking stickers, which will complicate what we are looking at,” Iseman said.

Proposed night-time limits for non-resident parking on neighborhood streets will be a burden for hotel and restaurant employees, Iseman said.

The hotel can meet its parking requirements by applying for credits — phantom spaces — offered as an incentive to preserve architecturally or historically important structures in Laguna. The hotel also has leased some off-site parking. Valet service at the hotel door is not seen as a solution.

“We need more parking,” Councilwoman Elizabeth Schneider said. “I don’t care what the historical credits are. I don’t care what the leases are. My concerns are safety and parking.”

Some safety issues that got waylaid by the hassle over the bar still need to be resolved, said Frank, who crafted the conditions for a commission hearing on an amended conditional use permit to allow operation of the public roof top bar.

The council voted unanimously that “if the applicant agreed to withdraw his request for interpretation, and if the Council agreed the applicant was not forfeiting his rights to later contend that the existing conditional use permit already covered the existing use and that there was a 125-guest and 10-staff occupancy cap on the deck, the issue would be referred back to the Planning Commission, providing the property owner submitted by Dec. 1, 2007, an application for an amended and restated conditional use permit recognizing the Council’s concerns.”