‘Squealers’ Vow to Save Quality of Life in Belmont Shore

Carol Hutchins says even her dog does not care to walk down the alley behind 2nd Street in Belmont Shore anymore.

The quality of life in the seaside village is anything but quaint, she and other residents complain, when they wake up to beer bottles on the front lawn, vomit on the sidewalk and rats in the alley where some restaurants pour their grease.

“I have seen dead rats. . . . The noise goes on until 2 and 3 in the morning. . . . We don’t know if the screaming is pain or pleasure,” said Hutchins, 53. “You don’t see nice couples sitting on their front lawns anymore.”

A small but vocal group of Belmont Shore homeowners blames the city for failing to enforce laws intended to preserve the integrity of their neighborhood.

So they have decided to enforce the laws themselves. Like a self-appointed sentry, the Belmont Shore Improvement Assn. is turning in its neighbors for illegal remodeling and bringing merchants to their knees on the sidewalks of 2nd Street.

Their fans laud them for fighting to save Belmont Shore from the ravages of uncontrolled growth. But their critics say they are a pack gone mad with power, driving neighbors to snitch on each other and businesses to bow to the demands of a 300-member group that represents less than 10% of the Belmont Shore population.

“They run around squealing on their neighbors. It’s ridiculous,” said John Morris, co-owner of Legend’s sports bar, one of several 2nd Street businesses that has incurred the association’s wrath. “Some merchants are so offended by the way they are being treated by this little group. They are a pain in the neck.”

Led by Bud Huber, a 45-year-old computer specialist, the association members want more parking and no more restaurants. They say the city gives away building permits willy-nilly without regard for building codes. They contend that the changing face of 2nd Street is attracting too many out-of-towners to a shopping strip built to cater to locals. They complain of used condoms left on their front lawns, drunks urinating on their sidewalks and teen-agers necking in their driveways.

“It’s the quality of life. It is not as good as it could be, not as good as it should be, and it is getting worse,” Huber said. “And we are coming out with our guns blazing.”

Their strategy includes measuring the square footage of their neighbors’ additions and threatening merchants with boycotts and liquor license delays if their demands are not met.

Not everyone agrees with their methods, but there is no disputing that they get results. Good or bad, the Belmont Shore Improvement Assn. has emerged as a force that is helping to shape the future of a booming community still struggling to figure out what it wants to be.

The Belmonte gourmet food store, for example, met all of the city’s standards but it did not expand until owner Frank Pocino agreed to 28 demands made by the improvement association. He promised never to give table service, never to hand out a glass with a six-pack of beer, never to position his store lights so they shine in the windows of local homes and never to open the private dining room he had envisioned for gourmet parties.

Cafe Mes Amis was slapped with two petitions signed by residents protesting the service of liquor when the French cafe prepared to open two years ago. The owner agreed to limit seating, never open a bar and control noise. In exchange, the improvement association agreed not to stand in the way of the cafe’s much-coveted liquor license, owner Nahid Banihashemi said.

Hof’s Hut Case

The group’s most infamous fight was last year when Hof’s Hut ballooned from a 50-seat coffee shop to a 150-seat restaurant that the improvement association said only aggravated the 2nd Street parking disaster. The homeowners’ protests held up the restaurant’s liquor license for nearly two years, costing owner Craig Hofman $100,000, he said.

Group members say they would gladly leave the job of enforcement to the city if the city would do the job. Indeed, they resent being made the heavy in a community where, according to one resident, people are afraid to open their garage doors for fear a neighbor will report that it is being used for storage instead of parking.

“We are trying to watch out for each other’s homes, watch out for people breaking in,” association member Gail Roice said. “But we don’t want (neighbors) stepping on our toes either.”

The group’s aggressiveness has created some hard feelings in a neighborhood that is supposed to be one of the closest things to paradise in Long Beach.

Convinced that the city was giving illegal building permits for home additions, Huber recently compiled a list of six houses he thought violated city codes.

Building Project Halted

In two of the six cases, he was right. One of those belonged to Phil Geller, a sales representative who moved into his Granada Avenue house last March with dreams of expanding the master bedroom and adding a bath.

The city gave Geller the go-ahead, and $36,000 later he was 80% finished.

Then Huber turned Geller in. The city inspectors who first said he could build the room now say he is 105 square feet over code. Geller does not have the money to change it and he does not have the permission to finish it. The scaffolding has sat idle for five weeks and his neighbors are complaining that it is an eyesore.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do. I am lost. I’m at the end,” Geller steamed. “Bud Huber is to blame for this whole situation. I think he’s trying to run for mayor.”

“I felt for the guy,” Roice said. “He had all this time invested and the city approved the plans and one of the neighbors snitched on him. People are watching and they are reporting on their neighbors. But if the city isn’t going to do it, I guess we have to.”

Robert Paternoster, director of planning and building, said the city “made a mistake,” but a mistake is not considered grounds to make Geller’s home an exception.

Confusing Set of Laws

Paternoster said Belmont Shore’s zoning regulations are so complex that even the zoning staff has trouble figuring them out.

He said his office could do nothing more for Geller, who is appealing the stop-work order on his house to the Planning Commission. Paternoster said the city might eventually take Geller to court if he does not fix the addition or tear it down. City officials and merchants say the confusion stems in part from all the years Belmont Shore has spent struggling to decide what it wants to look like.

Some neighbors insist that 2nd Street should remain a shopping center for residents only. Other residents like the trendy new cafes and restaurants that are drawing tourists from all over Southern California.

The merchants insist they could not survive on the support of local residents alone while paying the skyrocketing rents 2nd Street commands.

“That’s a fairy tale,” said Steve Gibson, owner of McConnell’s Ice Cream and president of the Belmont Shore Business Assn. “If we had to rely on local residents, we would all go broke.”

The struggle has created an odd mix of slick shops and sluggish dinosaurs along 2nd Street, which some merchants say would boom if the residents would only let it.

“They can’t decide what they want 2nd Street to be,” Belmonte’s Pocino said. “They tell you what they don’t want it to be--they don’t want Melrose Avenue or Rodeo Drive or Westwood Village. Fine. But you know what that leaves you? A mediocre shopping district.”

The improvement association is scheduled to meet Tuesday with the city’s Housing and Neighborhoods Committee to sort out the area’s complicated building codes.

Meanwhile, the merchants promote change, the residents resist it and if they do not meet somewhere in the middle, neither will prosper, Legends owner Morris predicts.

“If 2nd Street was all schlock and boarded up stores, their property values would go down,” Morris said. “It takes two to tango down there.”