OAK PARK : Residents Call for Business Curfew

Contending that a 24-hour doughnut shop may attract crime, a group of Oak Park residents is asking the county to impose a curfew on businesses in the area.

However, John Bencomo, a spokesman for the county planning department, said the county can’t randomly limit the hours a business can operate.

Nearly a dozen residents from various Oak Park subdivisions expressed concerns before Supervisor Maria VanderKolk and the Oak Park Municipal Advisory Council at Tuesday’s council meeting. At issue is the 24-hour operation of the Donut Inn in the Oak Park Shopping Center at Kanan and Lindero Canyon roads.

No crimes have occurred at the Donut Inn since it opened in January, county officials said. But Oak Park resident Norman Saleet, who spoke for the group at the meeting, said he feared that the shop eventually will attract criminals.

“We’re all pro-business to a certain extent,” Saleet said. But, “we feel there should be a midnight curfew” on all businesses in the area, or at least on the doughnut shop.

“Like my father used to say, ‘Leave the light on and you’re going to attract bugs,’ ” Saleet said.

The Donut Inn gets about 40% of its business after midnight, most between 3:30 and 6 a.m., owner Ramez Kozma said. Almost all the shop’s customers are Oak Park residents, he said.

“People who live here who work far away have to leave early because of traffic,” Kozma said.

Limitations on hours are generally set before the county approves a project, Bencomo said. Even in the planning stage, the county has to have good reason, such as concerns over noise, for imposing limitations. The county could change the conditions of the Donut Inn’s operating permit if there were a series of police reports or complaints about it, he said.