Life at the Beach Turns Into Life With the Bottle : Alcohol: The availability of liquor near Stephanie Barbanell’s home is turning her dream location into a nightmare, she says.
Stephanie Barbanell fulfilled a longtime dream of living near the beach when she and her husband moved into their modest home on Seaview Terrace in Santa Monica more than six years ago.
She and her nearly 3-year-old child take walks to the beach and to the Santa Monica Municipal Pier, which is less than a mile north of her home.
But her dream location is becoming a nightmare, she says, because city officials have also selected the area around her home and to the north for revitalization as an entertainment destination spot with new hotels, restaurants and nightclubs--and with them the sale of alcoholic beverages.
“I am very concerned about the amount of alcohol availability in our community,” says Barbanell, an elementary teacher currently on leave. “I am not a Prohibitionist or teetotaler, but I think I am living amidst quite a few alcohol outlets.”
According to the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, one on-sale license (bars and restaurants) is recommended for each 897 people in a census tract, and one off-sale license (liquor store) is recommended for each 1,142 people.
Barbanell’s census tract--which is bordered by Wilshire, Lincoln and Pico boulevards and the Pacific Ocean, and includes the pier and the Third Street Promenade--has a population of 2,621, based on the 1980 Census. The ABC told Barbanell that her tract should have only three of each license category, yet 87 on-sale and 15 off-sale licenses exist.
“We do not feel that our neighborhood needs to have 2,800% more alcohol outlets than the state guidelines recommend,” Barbanell said. “When is enough enough?”
One reason for the high number of liquor licenses in her census tract is that the area is zoned primarily for commercial development. Only a few blocks bordered by Colorado Boulevard, Ocean Avenue, Pico Boulevard and the ocean are zoned for residential use.
As a result, Barbanell has gotten little sympathy from the City Council.
At a recent City Council hearing at which she appealed Planning Commission approval of alcohol being served at a cafe planned for the west end of the city-owned pier, Barbanell received support for her appeal from the CLARE Foundation, a nonprofit group that provides treatment for alcoholism as well as a neighbor who is on the board of the California Council on Alcohol Policy.
The neighbor, Ken Schonlau, asked the council to consider the fact that tourists who drink pose a threat to the community when driving out of Santa Monica.
“You’re just kidding yourself that this can continue without paying the price,” Schonlau said.
But the City Council denied the appeal, saying it was not appropriate to consider the neighborhood as residential because of the high number of commercial uses and the uniqueness of the pier.
“This is indeed, an area of the city that has by proportion few residents and a lot of entertainment uses,” said Councilman Ken Genser, who joined the near unanimous vote in denying Barbanell’s appeal. Councilman David Finkel abstained. “In fact, that particular area is a visitor-serving zone.”
Genser said it would be illogical to determine the number of liquor licenses in the area by the number of residents, saying that to do so would mean that primarily residential areas such as Wilshire-Montana, Douglas Park or Sunset Park would have a greater number of licenses than the commercial area around the pier.
“This happens to be a mixed neighborhood,” Genser said. “The pier is a regional use. The notion that we are over-concentrated based on the ratio to residents just doesn’t make sense to me in this neighborhood.”
Barbanell has so far been unsuccessful in stopping the issuance of any new licenses in her census tract, including at the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel on Ocean Avenue or the Guest Quarters Suite Hotel on 4th Street.
She is currently protesting the issuance of a license to the beachfront Park Hyatt Santa Monica Beach Hotel, which is scheduled to open Sept. 30. A hearing is scheduled for Monday and Tuesday at the county Hall of Administration.
Barbanell said she is concerned that patrons of the Park Hyatt, which will feature two restaurants and an 80-foot-long bar fronting The Promenade, will return to the beach intoxicated or become unruly as they leave the hotel.
But Sam Stein, owner of the hotel, said such concerns are unwarranted.
“If she is anti-alcohol, that is her right,” Stein said. “But this will be a world-class hotel. I don’t think we are going to have customers throwing beers through the window to people on the beach.”
Bob Zeltonoga, a supervisor in the beverage control department office in Inglewood, said that in the 20 years he has been with the agency, he does not recall a hotel ever being denied a liquor license.
The odds are also against Barbanell stopping other new licenses, particularly on the pier and the Third Street Promenade--once aging eyesores that are being revitalized with a cornucopia of places to eat and drink and be entertained.
Despite the population-to-license guideline, there are enough loopholes in state regulations to allow more licenses.
Gilson L. Grey, district administrator of the beverage control agency, outlined those provisions in a letter to Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica), who made an inquiry on behalf of Barbanell.
Grey said that the agency may issue a license if the applicant shows the “public convenience or necessity” would be served by the issuance of the license.
One rule that Barbanell hoped to use to her advantage that requires denial of licenses in areas that have a 20% greater number of reported crimes than the average number of reported crimes for all the reporting districts.
However, the agency determined that this rule does not apply in Santa Monica because police do not officially report crimes by district, but rather citywide.
Barbanell paid the city $329.70 to have the statistics separated by districts. She discovered that her district, which has different borders than her census tract, and excludes the pier, the south beach area and Main Street, accounted for 35% of all alcohol-related arrests citywide between Jan. 1, 1987, and Aug. 18, 1989.
Based on seven reporting districts, Barbanell calculated that her area had 52% more crime than average. If special subgroups are included--such as the pier, the Third Street Promenade and Main Street--her neighborhood would have had 87% more crime than average, she calculates.
Some opponents of Barbanell have suggested that if she doesn’t like living in a mixed-use area with so much alcohol available, she should move. But Barbanell is quick to respond that she shouldn’t have to.
“I have always wanted to live near the beach,” she said. “We didn’t know what the consequences would be to living near a public beach. Still, I feel that we should enjoy all the rights and privileges and safety of the police services as anyone else in the city. We should not have to be living in the designated drinking area or the designated crime area.”
