GARDEN GROVE : City Seeking Avenues to Ease Blight

It’s not exactly Skid Row, and the strip of Garden Grove Boulevard between Beach Boulevard and Magnolia Street could probably belong to any of a dozen tired thoroughfares that run through older sections of Orange County.

But city officials and some residents in that area say it has deteriorated because of the presence of “adult businesses” such as bookstores, bars, nightclubs and cheap motels.

“This used to be a lovely area,” said a woman who has lived for more than 40 years in a house a block behind the boulevard, “and then ‘they’ came in.”

The owners of these businesses, however, like the area just fine. The city’s plans to redevelop Garden Grove Boulevard are off the mark, they say.

“This place is a lot nicer than downtown,” said Gordon Lawrence, owner of Jerome’s Interiors, referring to the vacant lots awaiting development in the downtown area. “I had this business in downtown and the city used eminent domain to push me out in 1975. Now I’m here 15 years and they want to push me out again.”

This week, the Garden Grove City Council directed city planners to begin work on a three-pronged effort to improve conditions on the boulevard.

The city may create a new redevelopment area around the Beach Boulevard intersection, rezone the entire strip, and offer financial assistance to a shopping center at Magnolia Street which recently lost its major tenant, a supermarket.

The staff will also soon be presenting to the council “an abatement program for some of those adult uses to get them out in two to four years,” said City Manager George Tindall.

Police reports support the city’s claim that boulevard businesses are the source of problems that have resulted in the area having twice the crime rate of the rest of the city.

“There have been problems with prostitution, both male and female, and drug problems,” said Police Chief John Robertson. Neighbors in the residential areas behind the strip have complained about parking problems, noise, litter and lewd acts committed in public.

“The people living in the neighborhoods shouldn’t have to put up with that,” Robertson said.

The police chief said the reduction of crimes related to adult businesses was one of his priorities when he took the job in the fall of 1988.

But most business operators like the status quo.

At a Jan. 9 meeting for area business owners and residents, some business owners suggested that the city is using renovation plans as a wedge to force out adult businesses.

“It’s not the nicest area in the world, but it’s hardly a high-crime area,” said Mark Lyman, owner of Nick’s Hide-Away bar. “I haven’t had one (crime) problem with my business. . . . I’ve had the (building) owner tell me that the area is the quietest it’s ever been in the 34 years he’s owned the property.”

Crimes linked to adult businesses are not the only problem the strip faces. A report by consultant SLA Studio Land Inc. of Costa Mesa said the boulevard is plagued by narrow lots, a high commercial vacancy rate, low commercial and residential rental rates, “chaotic” commercial signs of many different styles and sizes, and a glut of “rather poor-looking” car repair shops.

In May, 1989, the city banned new development on the strip, partly at the request of Robertson. The moratorium has since been extended to May, 1990.