VFW Hall a No-Win Issue in Santa Clarita : City Council: Lawmakers face offending affluent residents or endangering the community’s reputation for patriotism.

Peace talks have failed to produce a treaty in the war over a veterans’ bar and meeting hall in Santa Clarita.

Now it’s up to the City Council to settle the dispute between members of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 6885 and neighbors who say the hall does not belong in their residential neighborhood.

But if the council decides to shut down the post, the courts could become the final battleground in the dispute, an attorney for the VFW warned Tuesday.

The case is a no-win situation politically for the council. If it sides with the VFW, it will alienate residents of the city’s most affluent neighborhood, where horses and sheep graze behind white picket fences on small ranches worth $400,000 to $4 million. If it shuts down the post, Santa Clarita’s reputation as a highly patriotic community would certainly suffer.

“This is a tough one,” Councilwoman Jo Anne Darcy said in an interview Tuesday.

Faced with few options, the council Tuesday postponed until Jan. 28 a hearing on the VFW’s request for a permit to continue operating the hall on Sand Canyon Road. Councilwoman Jan Heidt requested the continuance because the city’s planning director and key negotiator in the dispute is on vacation and did not attend the council meeting.

The VFW needs permission from the city to continue operating because Los Angeles County allowed it to operate without the proper zoning permit, despite long-running complaints from neighbors, said Rich Henderson, a principal planner for Santa Clarita. Their problems are not with the veterans, neighbors say, but with the people who show up when the VFW rents the two-story hall and outdoor canteen for weddings and other parties on weekends.

The city has attempted to broker a peace agreement ever since August when the Planning Commission sided with neighbors who complained about loud parties at the hall and ordered it closed within 90 days.

The VFW then appealed the case to the council, and the post has remained open pending the council’s decision.

The city has held six meetings, but the two sides have been unable to agree on a compromise, Henderson said.

Members of the Sand Canyon Property Owners Assn. want the VFW to close the post in six months and stop serving liquor in the meantime. They say they have long complained about noisy parties, litter and public displays of drunkenness at the post.

“We are no longer willing to tolerate it,” said Leslie Christensen, who raises sheep on her ranch about a quarter of a mile from the post.

But VFW members are unwilling to surrender their liquor license because it helps generate income, said Skip Johnson, a Vietnam veteran and commander of the post. The VFW rents the hall to private parties and uses the money to pay its $800 monthly mortgage, he said.

The VFW has offered to take steps to improve relations with its neighbors, including warning them ahead of time when private parties are scheduled at the hall and appointing a member to respond to complaints. But homeowners rejected the VFW’s overtures as inadequate.

At the city’s urging, the VFW has consulted with a real estate broker about relocating the post in the event the council rules against the organization. Two properties on Sierra Highway north of Soledad Canyon Road are up for sale and might fit the VFW’s needs, said Russ Fotheringham, the broker called in by the city.

One is a vacant 10-acre parcel priced at $300,000, and the other a one-acre lot with several buildings priced at $425,000, he said.

Fotheringham said the VFW’s property on Sand Canyon Road is worth at least $400,000. Post members have said they owe only about $22,000 on the mortgage.

But Bruce Nahin, an attorney for the VFW, said the organization is not willing to sell its Sand Canyon site, saying the price would be “deflated when someone knows there is a gun to our head to sell.”

If the council closes down the post, Nahin said he will sue the city on the grounds that the post is a legal use because the county allowed it to exist for more than 20 years.

City Atty. Carl Newton said he is confident the city would prevail in court because the post’s status was never legally recognized. “Mr. Nahin is rather loose with his threats and interpretations of the law,” Newton said.