Captain’s Wharf : Commission Could Scuttle Restaurant
The Captain’s Wharf, one of Marina del Rey’s oldest restaurants, may be sinking.
Small Craft Harbor Commissioner Herbert J. Strickstein held a nearly three-hour public hearing Tuesday night on a proposed revocation of the restaurant’s operating permit.
Strickstein will file a report and make a recommendation to the full commission. His recommendation can range from simply requiring the restaurant to close earlier, eliminate dancing, or to revocation of its license. The commission is expected to act May 10.
If the permit is revoked, it would be the first since the marina was built in 1965.
Ted Reed, director of the county Department of Beaches and Harbors, initiated the revocation procedure because of alleged noise and nuisance problems since 1983. Reed said repeated efforts by the department have failed to eliminate the problems.
Related-Use Permit
The restaurant, 13960 Marquesas Way, is operating under a related-use permit because it is next to an apartment complex. According to county guidelines, a related use must “bear a reasonable relationship to the ‘primary use’ activities.” In this case, the primary use is the apartment complex, whose residents have been the primary complainers.
At Tuesday’s hearing, about a dozen residents complained of people talking loudly in the parking lot between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. on weekends. They also said motorists speed along Marquesas Way, keeping them awake at night.
“We can’t get to sleep before 3 in the morning,” said one resident.
But about 40 people, mostly long-time customers and some employees of the restaurant, said they have never experienced any problems.
“We have never noticed a high level of noise at the Captain’s Wharf,” said Shirley Weinstein, who was married at the restaurant 15 years ago. “I think it is unfair that the Captain’s Wharf should be singled out.”
Barrett W. McInerney, attorney for the restaurant owners, claims that the parcel’s master leaseholder wants the restaurant replaced with another, more profitable, facility.
The restaurant is operating under a favorable lease that was written 20 years ago. Control of the master lease transferred in 1984 to Marina Two Holding Partnership, whose principals include prominent attorney Douglas Ring and state Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Tarzana).
“Needless to say, the long-term sublease . . . executed in 1969 had evolved into an amazing bargain in 1985 dollars and had become a financial loss leader for the master lessee,” McInerney said in the brief. “The termination of the sublease interest . . . would potentially free up the property for more intensive and more lucrative development.”
Ring, in an interview before the hearing, denied that he is trying to force out the restaurant for any reason other than because of the noise and nuisance complaints.
“There is nothing political, there is nothing economic about this,” he said. “I am frankly disappointed in the attorney (McInerney), who is a friend of mine. But I guess, sometimes, one is reduced to pounding on the table.”
