COSTA MESA : City Sets Bar Permit Revocation Hearing

The City Council has set a hearing date to consider revoking the operating permit of the Island Trader bar and restaurant after neighbors complained this week of late-night noise and patrons parking on residential streets.

The council will hold a hearing on restaurant owner Gregory Howell’s operating permit in two weeks.

Howell vowed to fight the effort to close his business, however, and said other bar owners are forming an association to have a stronger voice when neighborhood opposition threatens to shut them down.

“They pick us off one at a time, and as a group we’d be able to lobby harder,” Howell said.

Neighbors complained that crowds at the business at 1500 Newport Blvd. keep them up until 2 or 3 a.m. One woman said she is building an enclosure around her front patio to keep drunk patrons from approaching her door.

“The only solution would be to shorten his hours (of operation), and he has refused to do that,” Monica Sloan, a neighbor, said.

The council denied Howell’s appeal of an earlier Planning Commission recommendation that he stop selling alcohol at 10:30 p.m. and close at 11 p.m. The restaurant now closes at 2 a.m.

“I’d have to have an auction tomorrow and walk away from my business” if forced to comply with the commission’s recommendations, Howell told the council.

However, he said he is willing to work with the city to come up with other ideas for staying in business and coexisting peacefully with the neighbors.

Already, Howell said, he has enforced dress codes, reduced the number of people inside the restaurant, increased security and talked with some patrons about their behavior outside the bar. He also said he would consider stopping the sale of alcohol at midnight to try to reduce the number of alcohol-related complaints from neighbors.

Howell said that his conditional use permit allows him to maintain his current operating hours and that it would be unfair for the city to prevent him from operating under previously approved conditions. He also suggested that the neighbors who have testified before the council are not a representative group.

“You get a coalition of people who get vocal and the city acts,” he said. “I would say the city should work for the entire city and not just a few.”