New Valley Cafe Gets Its Liquor Permit--and Hot Words From Neighbors

The people who want to open a Bistro Garden restaurant in Studio City finally got a city liquor permit last week, so the San Fernando Valley will get its own version of the tony Beverly Hills eatery.

This newest edition to Ventura Boulevard haute cuisine didn’t arrive without a struggle. For eight months, the Bistro Garden people attempted to obtain the much-needed liquor permit. For eight months, a group of nearby residents delayed the permit with complaints and angry words.

The “Battle of the Bistro” wasn’t just a fight between developers and residents. It was a fight for the reputation of fine dining in the suburbs.

Fears of Homeowners

“It’s shocking to think that an elite restaurant can pose problems,” said Rose Elmassian, who led the fight for the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn. “People don’t think that the well-to-do would urinate in public or do other crude things. It’s shocking, but it’s true.”

Last May, Elmassian and others from the neighborhood near the Bistro Garden construction site at Ventura Boulevard and Coldwater Canyon Avenue attended a zoning hearing to oppose the permit. Homeowners expressed fears that rude and intoxicated patrons might empty out of the restaurant and stumble down their streets.

Such suggestions outraged the Bistro Garden folks, whose original restaurant and its sister location, the Bistro, are renowned for their clientele.

“We have been here in Beverly Hills for 25 years,” said Jacqueline Larroque, the administrator at both restaurants. “We have had heads of state, movie stars, presidents, governors, princes and princesses. To even suggest that any of these would urinate on someone’s lawn before they step into their Mercedes is shocking. How could anyone think that?

“I think that the people who are saying those kinds of things are living in a trashy neighborhood,” she said. “Our bathrooms are probably more elegant than their living rooms.”

Critical of Restaurants

The debate extended beyond Bistro Garden, which will open next year. At a recent city hearing, a woman who has lived on Ventura Boulevard for 30 years took the opportunity to hurl a few allegations at a string of restaurants that already line the boulevard, including Marrakesh and La Serre, two of the Valley’s more expensive dining rooms.

“Last week, I picked up 40 wine and beer and vodka bottles drunk by people parked there after they’ve left these restaurants,” Marguerite Casey said.

Casey told city officials that she saw a man walk across the street from the restaurants and urinate in front of her house.

“This is the first time I’ve heard of this,” said Henry Abergel, the manager at La Serre, when told of the statement. “Our clientele is super-classy. They have their cars parked right in front by valet. Or, they have limousines.”

The Sherman Oaks homeowners group said that, to some extent, it opposed the liquor permit as a way of forcing concessions on traffic, parking and noise from developer Herbert Piken, who is using the Bistro Garden as a centerpiece for a new $15-million shopping center.

The residents were successful. Last Tuesday, the city Board of Zoning Appeals ruled that to serve liquor the restaurant must soundproof its dining room, provide enough parking for diners and employees and allow the city to review the operation at two-year intervals for the next six years.

But while homeowners hailed the decision as a victory, they also insisted that visions of drunken patrons invading their turf were not just a strategic bluff.

“I saw it,” said Rose Elmassian, secretary of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn. “The beer cans were under the car. The urine was on the street. It gets worse every day.”

In the arena of zoning hearings, where homeowners and developers go head-to-head, such heated debates are common.

“If you have been a zoning administrator for some time, you know that this may be a rare opportunity for homeowners to complain about problems they’ve got in their area,” said William Lillenberg, an associate zoning administrator, who presided over the first Bistro Garden hearing. “You hear a lot of people that will talk about theoretical possibilities. Of course, you have to distinguish between what you’re looking at and what could occur.”

When a restaurant applies for a city liquor permit, a form of a conditional use permit, the case is heard before a zoning administrator. He takes into account the restaurant’s application, the report of a zoning analyst, testimony at a public hearing and his own knowledge of the area. After a decision has been rendered, either side can appeal to the Board of Zoning Appeals.

“Very farstretched, in my opinion,” said Nikolas Patsaouras, chairman of the Board of Zoning Appeals, in response to allegations he heard directed against La Serre and other expensive restaurants on Ventura Boulevard. “The fact is that a man was urinating. The question is, how do you know the person who is urinating in your front yard came from that restaurant.”

Worries about drunken diners leaving the premises are difficult to address because there are no city-imposed restrictions that could control patrons after they leave the restaurant, Lillenberg said.

“You have to have the wisdom to understand that you’re considering a specific application,” he said. “You can’t solve the problems of the city on one particular application for a liquor license.”

As for the Bistro battle, the homeowners are happy to have won the considerations they fought for. The Bistro Garden people, on the other hand, appear to be a little wounded by the city’s decision and the attacks on their reputation.

“Happy? How can you be happy that every two years, like a criminal on parole, you have to stand up and be judged?” Larroque said. “I think it is outrageous. It is beyond justice.”