ANAHEIM : Bar Sues City in Effort to Stay Open

On a recent afternoon, rock ‘n’ roll blared from the Barbary Coast Cabaret, reverberating across the parking lot.

Inside, a bar surrounded a small stage where a bikini-clad woman with her buttocks exposed gyrated to the music, performing for an audience of three.

But time may be running out on the bar.

City administrators have told co-owners Carl and Franceska Honigmann that their business is a public nuisance and that the city is making plans to revoke the bar’s conditional use permit. Unless the City Council intercedes, the bar will be forced to shut down Aug. 5.

The Honigmanns, who paid $60,000 for the bar in 1985, have filed a countersuit against the city in Superior Court in an effort to block the closure. A June 17 hearing has been scheduled.

“It seems that the city is about to go on a crusade to close down bars, even those not creating any problem,” said Jeff Farano, the Honigmanns’ attorney.

However, neighborhood residents insist that the Barbary Coast Cabaret is a problem.

It is among about 35 taverns, bikini bars, restaurants and stores that sell liquor along a half-mile stretch of Brookhurst Street, between Broadway and Ball Road. It is, residents say, one bar too many for their neighborhood.

“West Anaheim is one of the last affordable places to buy a home in Orange County, and we have a lot of young couples here trying to raise families,” said Gary Hunneycutt, a 19-year resident and a leader of the local neighborhood association. He said the bars’ patrons wander drunk through the neighborhood and sometimes use drugs or have sex in front yards. The bar is open from 2 p.m. until 2 a.m.

Once, Hunneycutt said, two men walked out of the Barbary Coast into the street and banged on his car and threatened him when he honked at them for blocking his path.

“We have to start some place if we are going to clean up the neighborhood, and that place is the Barbary Coast,” he said.

The bar’s problems began last year when the Honigmanns sought a permit to expand, Farano said. The Planning Commission not only denied that permit but decided to revoke the bar’s existing conditional use permit. The Honigmanns have appealed the decision to the City Council.

Meanwhile, Sgt. Harold Mittman of the police vice squad said that while the Police Department gets many calls from this section of Brookhurst, police were sent to the Barbary Coast nine times in 1990 and 1991. The calls for service ranged from reports of an armed robbery to public intoxication. No one was reported seriously injured in any of the incidents.

“I can’t say that this business warrants full revocation, as it does not measure in percentage and intensity and degree of problem to other problem areas in town,” Mittmann testified. “There’s been a number of problems. It’s not an out-of-control problem.”

But Deputy City Atty. Malcolm Slaughter said the Honigmanns are on shaky ground.

“There is no guarantee that a conditional use permit will be renewed when it expires,” Slaughter said. “If the Honigmanns feel that their business is not a problem, they can apply for a new permit and if the council agrees, it will be issued.”