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Local Elections : Bed-and-Breakfast Is Coronado Election Issue

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Times Staff Writer

Coronado, a seaside town that can’t seem to make up its mind about whether to embrace a current onslaught of development or do everything it can to close the gates, faces a bed-and-breakfast ballot issue Tuesday that in most other coastal cities would be a rather tame proposal.

But not here, where some residents still feel that the worst thing to happen to the small peninsula city was the construction of the San Diego-Coronado Bay Bridge almost two decades ago. That event provided five paved lanes to the hordes knocking at the town’s door from San Diego and points east. It was, in their eyes, the freeway equivalent of the transcontinental railroad.

Since then, the community has groped to find solutions to the ever-increasing number of people who come to visit and work--mostly for the Navy--in an environment of palm-lined streets, tidy and expensive family neighborhoods, and clean, broad beaches.

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Building Boom

Even though the tourists keep coming, there hasn’t been that much new for them to see--until recently. In the last year, a building boom has hit Coronado, as new condominiums rise both at the water’s edge and in the middle of town; a new shopping and restaurant complex now greets the equally new San Diego-to-Coronado ferry; a 350-room luxury hotel is under construction at the foot of the bridge, with at least two others waiting in the wings, and a boat yard owner has proposed building a large retail project.

Into this mega-development milieu walked Bonni Marie Kinosian, whose plan to turn two bedrooms in the attic of her restored 93-year-old Victorian house into a bed-and-breakfast inn set off one of the fiercest political tempests this small town has ever witnessed, one consequence of which is Proposition M on Tuesday’s ballot.

Though the idea of bed-and-breakfast inns had been kicking around for a few years, it wasn’t until Kinosian made her proposal that the issue came together. Kinosian, a professional dancer who operates a dance studio on the ground floor of her Victorian, in which she also lives, set out last May to acquaint each of the five City Council members with the merits of the large historic landmark, which occupies a corner at 8th and D streets.

One of those was William Adams, a 13-year veteran of the council. Adams visited the house on a Sunday afternoon and left 4 1/2 hours later. In a complaint filed with the Coronado Police Department, Kinosian alleged that Adams offered to vote in favor of a bed-and-breakfast that she had requested if Kinosian would “go to bed” with him.

Adams, she alleged, also made several other sexual remarks and advances, including comments such as he was “hoping to get into your pants.” The District Attorney’s office investigated and said there wasn’t evidence to prosecute Adams for offering to receive a bribe.

Adams told The Times in August, when the incident became public, that it was all a misunderstanding and that some of his comments were taken out of context. He acknowledged, however, that “I may have said, ‘Any man would be glad to be married to you and get in your pants.’ ”

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The ensuing furor so singed the editorial pages of Coronado’s weekly newspaper, the Coronado Journal, the paper notified its readers after several weeks it would no longer print letters-to-the-editor regarding the Adams-Kinosian matter.

Up to a Vote

Instead of voting for the bed-and-breakfast ordinance that Kinosian had asked for, Adams, in July, successfully pushed for a special advisory election in November, to let Coronado voters state their preference--through Proposition M--on whether the city should license bed-and-breakfast inns.

The proposed ordinance outlined in Proposition M is one of the most restrictive found in California--so restrictive, claims Kinosian, that probably no more than three or four homes in Coronado would qualify, and only hers immediately.

The ordinance would, for example, allow only two bed-and-breakfast inns to be approved by the City Council each year, and then only after all adjacent property owners and two-thirds of property owners within a 300-foot radius had approved as well.

All bed-and-breakfast inns would have to be declared historical structures by the council and could only be located in high-density and commercial zones and not in single-family neighborhoods. Additionally, an inn would have to conform with new building codes and provide plenty of on-site parking--a requirement that eliminates many homes from consideration.

Operators of the inns--who would have to live on the premises and own no less than half of the property--would be prohibited from serving alcohol to patrons and could only serve guests one meal, between the hours of 5 and 10 a.m.

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Kinosian and other supporters of Proposition M--including the Coronado Business Assn.--say a bed-and-breakfast ordinance would provide property owners with an alternative other than building condominiums or other high-density residential structures and could serve to preserve historic homes.

But both Kinosian and her supporters say that, in truth, the measure is really only about her home, as it apparently is the only one that currently meets the ordinance’s restrictions.

“There’s only one house that fits the ballot . . . the old Victorian at 8th and D . . . that’s the truth of what this vote is all about,” she said. “I’m asking to utilize the house to its fullest capacity. I still (adhere) to the American way of life. What’s wrong with being an entrepreneur and wanting to work?”

Move to Defeat Issue

That may sound fine, says Carol Cahill, a co-founder with her husband of the Committee to Defeat the Bed-and-Breakfast Measure, but it’s all a bunch of self-serving nonsense, she added.

“This isn’t us against Bonni Marie, even though she’d like to think so,” says Cahill. “I’ve never met the woman and I don’t care to. It’s sort of incredible, don’t you think, that we’d have an election for one person.”

Cahill says approval of Proposition M and a subsequent bed-and-breakfast ordinance would lead to “a further encroachment of commercial (uses) into residential areas.” She claims that despite what Kinosian says, as many as 200 homes could qualify as historical structures and could become bed-and-breakfast inns.

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“Coronado is being pushed around by developers . . . just like all the beach communities,” she said. “Bed-and-breakfasts aren’t necessary. We have enough rooms for tourists. This is all being done for money.”

As Cahill sees it, even though the proposed ordinance would allow only two bed-and-breakfast inns a year--which, using her numbers, means it would take 100 years before Coronado would exhaust its 200-home inventory--once the measure is law, it would take “only three votes” from the five-member council to make exemptions.

“It’s like salami . . . the developers take it a slice at a time,” she said.

When asked what would stop a future council from simply adopting a bed-and-breakfast ordinance--in keeping with her three-vote majority scenario--Cahill responded indirectly by saying it was important that residents make their feelings known by defeating Proposition M.

“We’re just trying to hold on,” she said. “We may lose, but we’re not going to roll over.”

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