Anaheim : Decision on Angelo’s Delayed Until Tuesday

Witnesses were subpoenaed and sworn in. A court reporter took dictation. And attorneys from each side took turns asking the questions.

But the person called “your honor” was a City Council member, and the proceedings took place in the Civic Center.

At stake was whether Angelo’s Hamburgers in the 200 block of North Beach Boulevard can operate as a drive-in, drive-through restaurant with an enclosed indoor patio. But after spending most of Wednesday afternoon listening to testimony, including that of a mail carrier whose route includes Angelo’s, the council postponed a decision until next Tuesday.

Representatives of businesses and tenants of a mobil home park testified that the restaurant brought with it screeching cars, excessive noise, trespassing and littering by customers when it opened last February.

Michelle A. Reinglass, attorney for Angelo’s, said one particular car club and not the restaurant’s customers is to blame.

Angelo’s owners have argued that the restaurant has operated for about 10 years as a drive-in restaurant through several previous owners without raising an eyebrow in the city.

“It was not until it was purchased by Mr. (Dennis) Williams and Mr. (Anthony) Strammiello and the name changed to Angelo’s Restaurant that the legality of the operation as a drive-in, drive-though restaurant was called into question,” Reinglass wrote in a Nov. 6 letter to the council.

On Wednesday, Reinglass also argued that there are at least eight drive-in, drive-through restaurants in Anaheim working without such permits--and without what she called “harassment” by the city.

The city and Angelo’s--which has another drive-through restaurant in Anaheim that has been the focus of similar complaints--have been at odds for several years and their differences, on occasion, have been resolved in a courtroom.