SANTA ANA : City Rejects Request by Mr. J’s Restaurant

The City Council has rejected a restaurant owner’s request to have a cover charge, a change which city staff said would amount to turning the business into a nightclub.

The council voted unanimously Monday to deny the permit for Mr. J’s, at 2101 E. Edinger Ave., after receiving a lengthy report of concerns from city staff and police.

Serious crime that police attribute primarily to patrons of the business jumped 93% from 1991 to 1992, and the business is now no longer operating primarily as a restaurant because it serves more alcohol than food, in violation of its state alcohol license, the report states. The Planning Commission unanimously denied an earlier request for the permit.

Before the vote, however, patrons and employees of Mr. J’s complained that the city’s resistance to granting the permit is racially motivated and pointed out that the majority of the clientele is black.

“I think this is a prejudice issue. Black and white,” said Kevin Collins, a patron of Mr. J’s who is black. “I think if this was a white club, there’d be more of a helping attitude.”

The restaurant, which now offers dancing through 6 a.m. and performances by male exotic dancers, received about 53% of its income for the last two years from cover charges, despite not being officially permitted to do so, the council report states.

In a letter sent to Mr. J’s owner Mohammad Z. Johar dated Nov. 14, Police Chief Paul Walters wrote: “It is apparent to me that you have completely lost the ability to: 1) control the types of people being admitted to Mr. J’s for public dancing and 2) control the unlawful actions of persons situated at or in the immediate vicinity. . . .”

The letter also describes a jump in serious crime at the restaurant over the last year, including incidents such as the kidnaping and armed robbery of a security guard in June, an argument in the parking lot that ended in the shooting death of a patron in October and the shooting of another security guard in November.

However, Joshua Kaplan, representing Johar, disputed 63 police reports that attributed the increase in crime to the business or its patrons, calling them “inflammatory and baseless accusations.”

He pointed out that a security guard helped apprehend a suspect in the homicide by writing down a license number and said the suspect was not a patron. “There is nothing that Mr. J’s did, or did not do” to cause increased crime, he said.

Police Chief Paul M. Walters defended the reports and said security guards did not adequately patrol the parking lots or surrounding area. “It is our opinion that there is a relationship between the mismanagement of the establishment and the level of crime.”