Pool Hall, Club Given OK to Open : Night life: The council overrides objections from the police. But restrictions put on the billiards center may halt its plans.

Despite opposition from the Police Department, a divided City Council approved permits this week for a billiards center oriented toward the middle-aged and a nightclub for the college crowd.

But the council attached such restrictive conditions to the operation of the billiards center that it may not open.

Both proposed establishments would serve food and alcoholic beverages. The Police Department opposed permits on grounds that additional outlets for alcohol could increase crime.

City Councilwoman Nell Soto, supporting the police view, said, “It’s a sad day when the only kinds of businesses coming into Pomona are pool halls and dance halls.”

Ralph M. Scarrow, a professor in the school of hotel and restaurant management at Cal Poly Pomona, sought approval to operate a restaurant and billiards center next to a Sav-On drugstore in a shopping center at Foothill Boulevard and Towne Avenue. Scarrow won the permit, but said the conditions imposed by the council may make the project financially unfeasible.

“I haven’t had a chance to sit down and work out the economics,” he said. “But my guess is that it’s borderline at best.”

The Planning Commission had granted a permit for the center on condition that it exclude minors, close nightly at 10 p.m. and provide a security guard after sundown. Scarrow appealed to the council, which eased the restrictions somewhat.

The council said Scarrow could operate without a security guard, allow minors in the billiards room until 8 p.m. and stay open until midnight Sunday through Thursday and until 2 a.m. on weekends, but must end liquor sales at midnight. Scarrow said the early curtailment of liquor sales would harm the business’s chances for success.

Councilman Ken West, who proposed the restrictions, said, “Late hours, alcohol and billiards are a bad mix.” The council approved the permit and conditions on a 4-3 vote, with the dissenters favoring even tougher restrictions.

One dissenter, Mayor Donna Smith, said she has “nothing against playing pool,” but fears that another outlet in Pomona serving alcohol could produce more crime. Some residents near the shopping center voiced similar concerns.

Scarrow said the council attitude reminded him of “The Music Man,” the musical in which a trickster persuades a town to give him money for a youth band to turn boys away from pool halls and other evils. The council, he said, apparently thinks of a billiards parlor “as a smoke-filled room full of gangsters.”

Scarrow said he intended to open a high-quality, 72-seat restaurant and billiards center for senior citizens, workers and others seeking recreation in a clean, comfortable and friendly atmosphere. In his business plan submitted to the city, he described his target market as “down-home, mature, intelligent and upscale.” His proposed business would require an investment of nearly $200,000 and employ 25 people.

Although Scarrow was disappointed by the council’s decision, two young entrepreneurs, Jose Sambolin and John Brinkman, gained a victory for their proposed business venture, a cafe and nightclub for people 18 and over at 158 W. Holt Blvd. Because they intend to serve alcohol, Sambolin and Brinkman are seeking a permit from the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, but they also need a dance permit from the city.

The council, by a 5-2 vote, overturned a Police Department decision to deny a dance permit to the proposed business, tentatively called Harvey’s Cafe.

The Police Department refused to issue the permit unless the owners agreed to exclude people under 21 from the dance area. Sambolin and Brinkman appealed to the council, saying part of their business strategy would be to attract college-age customers, many of whom would be under 21.

The council split on the issue 3-3 at an earlier council meeting when West was absent. West said this week that he had some reservations, but that the nightclub would provide a controlled environment for young people that would be preferable to the streets. The council imposed conditions that include requiring the business to have a system for distinguishing patrons old enough to be served alcohol.

Mayor Smith, who voted against the dance permit earlier, said she changed her mind after she realized that her son, Robert, a Marine who is under 21 and recently returned from the Persian Gulf, would have been barred from the establishment.

She said she could not reconcile the fact that “he is old enough to go fight for his country, but he isn’t old enough to go dancing.”

Council members Willie E. White and Soto dissented. The new business, which the owners hope to open by November, would occupy a 10,000-square-foot building formerly known as the St. Charles Bar & Grill.