Solana Beach Nightclub to Open--With Restrictions

Agreeing that they were “between a rock and a hard spot,” San Diego County supervisors voted Wednesday to allow the owners of a popular Pacific Beach restaurant and nightclub to open a similar business in Solana Beach.

The decision came after a lengthy and emotional hearing at which Solana Beach residents and others warned that the new Diego’s Mexican Restaurant and Cantina would bring to their neighborhood drunk drivers, peeping Toms, drug pushers and violent crime, among other problems.

With Supervisor Susan Golding voting no and Leon Williams absent, the board voted 3-1 to grant a permit allowing Diego’s owners to expand an existing, abandoned restaurant and add outdoor dining areas. The board attached to the permit more than 10 conditions meant to control the noise and rowdiness that neighbors feared.

Had the board denied the permit, Diego’s would have been free to open a business in the existing building, without any expansion and without any of the conditions.

Although the major issue discussed was the small amount of parking available for the more than 300 patrons and employees expected to crowd the establishment at night, the poor reputation of the Diego’s Pacific Beach location was clearly the emotional fuel that drove the opposition.

But the restaurant owners insisted that their Solana Beach outlet would not be a mirror image of the existing restaurant in Pacific Beach, which they noted is in a neighborhood jammed with other bars and night spots that attract an undesirable element.

Richard Williams, an architect working for Americor, the partnership that runs the Diego’s restaurants, said the Solana Beach location would “be geared to an older, more sophisticated crowd.”

Attorney C. Samuel Blick told the board that the owners had agreed to every condition that opponents and the county’s staff had proposed during the six public hearings on the project before Wednesday.

Indeed, the Solana Beach Diego’s, which will be on the west side of Old Highway 101 near the community’s southern boundary with Del Mar, will be one of the county’s most heavily regulated restaurants. By the time the hearing ended, the owners had agreed to:

- Limit the number of customers to 300 at a time, despite the fact that the building could hold more than 700. The owners will have to obtain an amended permit to allow more customers when they have secured more than the 97 parking spaces they now have available.

- Build a fence around the restaurant and a 6-foot-high block wall along one side.

- Allow access to the restaurant’s parking lots only from the east side, bordering the coast highway.

- Provide valet parking and a parking lot security guard every night after 5 p.m.

- Limit the location of the dance floor and not allow music or dancing on the outdoor patios.

- Use lighted signs only on two sides of the building, shielding them from the residences to the west.

- Submit to a review of the operation in 18 months to ensure that it is not a disruption to the community.