Juice Company’s Zoning Battle With City Upsets the Apple Cart

A fledgling El Segundo apple juice company is stuck in a zoning dispute with city officials. As a result, it’s also stuck with three tons of apples.

AppleMaid Corp. executives are scrambling to find a place to put the $20,000 worth of fruit stored in the building they rented recently on East Imperial Avenue. Although refrigerated, some of the apples have already spoiled, they say.

“We are sinking,” company President Neal Simmons said in an interview this week.

In addition to the apples, the company has spent $30,000 to renovate the building, said Simmons, who described himself as a venture capitalist who started the business with four other investors.

Last October, the company signed a seven-year lease for the building in the 1300 block of East Imperial Avenue. It hoped to start processing juice there last month for delivery to supermarkets, hospitals and other customers.

Even though the 22,500-square-foot building is in an area that is not zoned for food processing operations, it has been used for such purposes with city permission since 1960.

Indeed, Simmons said that before AppleMaid signed its lease, the commercial real estate company that listed the building as a food processing facility checked with El Segundo city officials and were assured that such companies would be allowed to operate there.

The building’s previous tenant, a catering company, ceased operations there a year ago, Simmons said.

Simmons said his company began renovating the building shortly after it signed the lease and called in a county health inspector to look over the premises. AppleMaid also hired 12 people, telling them that they could expect to start work Dec. 7.

But the company’s plans came to a halt and the workers were laid off before they could begin after El Segundo Planning Director Lynn Harris informed the company that it would need a conditional use permit. The area is zoned for offices, retail shops and restaurants.

The process to obtain such a permit typically takes months and could take as long as a year, with no guarantee of success.

“You don’t zone by precedent,” said Harris, who said she does not know who told the company it could operate there. “You don’t rely on what happened in the past.”

The company had hoped the city’s Planning Commission would overrule Harris. However, the matter was taken out of the commission’s hands this week when City Atty. Leland Dolley agreed with Harris that the company needs the permit, Harris said.

Simmons said that rather than apply for the permit, his company will take legal action against the city to overturn Harris’ ruling. In the meantime, Simmons said, the company is trying to find someone to take the apples off its hands.