SUN COULD SET ON PUB AS IT WAITS FOR DANCING OK

The ever-lengthening list of embattled Orange County music clubs has just gained one more name: the Sunset Pub in Sunset Beach.

Not long after celebrating the club’s third anniversary in August, owner Clint Oberholzer curtailed dancing when Orange County Sheriff’s Department officials informed him that he did not have a public dance permit.

Oberholzer claims that since dancing was halted on Sept. 18, revenue has fallen off an average of $500 per night and that the 92-seat club is in danger of going out of business unless he is granted the dance permit by the Sheriff’s Department.

“I never knew I needed one and I don’t know why all of a sudden, after we’ve been open and having dancing for three years, they tell us we need a dance permit,” Oberholzer, 38, said. “If I know the law, I follow it.”

Reponded Sheriff’s Department spokesman Lt. Dick Olson: “Dance permits are required in unincorporated areas of the county and if it comes to our attention that an establishment doesn’t have one, they are asked to apply for one.

“The normal process takes about two months. So we are only about halfway through the process.”

The Sunset Pub, which attracts a predominantly over-25 crowd, has booked local jazz acts including guitarists George Van Eps and John Anello Jr., reggae groups as well as blues and rock bands such as the Mighty Flyers, the James Harman Band, the Gyromatics and others.

Oberholzer said he applied for a dance permit immediately after being told to do so and is still awaiting a decision. He said he has also been refused a temporary permit to allow dancing during the investigation period for the regular permit.

Said Olson: “We are also doing a noise survey and it isn’t felt that a temporary permit is in the best interest of the area. We don’t have enough information back yet to make that determination.”

But Olson said the club has not generated any serious complaints from the neighborhood. “There hasn’t necessarily been at this point an excess (of problems),” he said. “There’s been one fight and one person arrested for being drunk in public outside the club at 5:30 a.m.”

In the meantime, Oberholzer has printed flyers informing patrons that dancing is no longer permitted and urging them to write to Orange County Supervisor Harriett Wieder on the matter.

Some local residents are also going to bat for the club. “I’ve got a ton of petitions that I want everybody to sign,” Sunset Beach resident Laine Medina said Friday. “I mean, everybody wants to dance. We went in last night to see the Gyromatics and it was no fun without dancing.”

Oberholzer said that the club has only been operating profitably since January, when he changed the bookings to emphasize many of the area’s better blues, jazz and rock acts. “I’m lucky because the club is not my primary source of income,” said Oberholzer, who is a partner in a management and systems consulting business. “But I’ve got 22 employees who do depend on the club and I’m getting to the point where some layoffs are imminent.”

Unlike other original music clubs where bands play one show in a concert setting, the Sunset Pub features groups that perform several sets each night and frequently books bands for two- and three-night engagements.