Monty’s in Westwood : Restaurant Presses Fight to Save Sign

The owner of Monty’s restaurant will carry his three-year battle to maintain the restaurant’s sign atop a 21-story high-rise to a public hearing Wednesday on the proposed Westwood Village zoning plan.

Dennis G. Levine, owner-operator of the restaurant at 1100 Glendon Ave., said he will ask city planners for an exemption from regulations that outlaw rooftop signs in Westwood Village.

The 444-square-foot sign, with Monty’s spelled out in red lettering on a yellow background, has been on the building since the restaurant opened 18 years ago.

Exemption Denied

A revised sign ordinance for Westwood Village was adopted in 1979 giving owners of illegal signs five years to remove them. Levine applied for an exemption, which has been denied by the city Planning Commission.

The city has suspended action on the sign until the new Westwood Village zoning plan is adopted later this year.

“My sign is not eye pollution,” Levine said. “It is absolutely necessary for the survival of the restaurant. Operating a high-rise restaurant is one of the hardest things to do. You need all the help you can get, especially in name recognition.”

Levine said his restaurant is not located along “the main drag” of Westwood. “It is kind of off to the side,” he said. “There is very little pedestrian traffic to recognize a street-level sign, which is what the city wants me to put up.”

He also argued that the sign has become an institution in Westwood. “Everybody has seen the sign and would miss it if we were forced to remove it,” Levine said. “My restaurant is, with the exception of a doughnut shop, the oldest in Westwood.”

Supporting Levine’s efforts is Sandy Brown, treasurer of Friends of Westwood, an organization that opposes high-rise and high-density development.

“We support the sign ordinance,” Brown said, “but Monty’s represents a special problem in that it is located on top of a high-rise building. We would hate to see the sign removed if it meant that the restaurant would go out of business.

‘A Good Neighbor’

“I have eaten there regularly and it is one of the few places in Westwood where you meet your neighbors,” Brown added. “Monty’s has been a good neighbor and is one of the few things in the community that has existed for a long time.”

Ginny Kruger, planning deputy for Los Angeles City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, said the councilman is a strong supporter of the sign ordinance and had sent a letter in 1984 to the city Building and Safety Department to begin enforcing it.

Yaroslavsky’s support of the ordinance “was not aimed specifically at Monty’s or any other business,” Kruger said. “The ordinance was designed to bring some reasonable standards to business signs in Westwood.”

She expressed surprise that Friends of Westwood favor an exemption for Monty’s. “Obviously, they should make that known at the hearing Wednesday, because it is my understanding that no changes in the sign ordinance are recommended.”

The meeting will begin at 5 p.m. at Warner Avenue Elementary School, 615 Holmby Ave., Westwood.