City Accuses Restaurant Owner of Destroying Park’s ‘Ugly’ Shrubs

Furious city officials are accusing restaurateur Lloyd McDonald of taking the lawn into his own hands.

Officials contend that McDonald, owner of the Summit House restaurant, uprooted thousands of dollars worth of city shrubbery in 11-acre Vista Park.

“We’re ticked off,” City Manager William C. Winter said Friday. “He had no right to do that.”

Winter sent McDonald a letter on Sept. 9 saying the plant removal was “unauthorized and subjects you to a claim for damages by the (Redevelopment) Agency.”

Winter said he has gotten no response to the letter.

McDonald did not return calls made to his office Friday, but restaurant officials deny the accusations.

The upscale restaurant is on high ground and surrounded by a small lawn that gives way to drought-resistant native shrubs in the rest of the park. McDonald leases the land from the city and must have landscape changes approved by the council, Winter said.

Winter said McDonald, who built a restaurant in English Tudor style, thought the plants were ugly and asked the city if he could replace them with non-native grass and trees.

The weekend before a Sept. 2 Redevelopment Agency meeting to consider McDonald’s request, someone decided to have the plants removed, in daylight.

Winter said city maintenance workers caught landscapers green-handed. “We were told by workers at the site that they were working for the restaurant,” he said.

Hundreds of native plants were removed and will cost more than $5,000 to replace, according to Greg Meek, development coordinator for the Community Services Department. Meek admitted that the native plants had not looked as good as the city hoped but said they would have grown in. “All this takes a little bit of patience, but the restaurant doesn’t have patience,” Meek said.

Gary Parkinson, operations manager at the Summit House said, “I have no idea who did this.” Parkinson said he was in San Diego the weekend the uprooting took place.

Parkinson added that the restaurant’s business was damaged by the native shrubs. “Banquets would not book with us because of the unkempt appearance,” he said. “We had weeds up to the windows.”

Meek said the city spent $350,000 to landscape the park at the intersection of Bastanchury Road and State College Boulevard in northwest Fullerton. The landscaping was planned before the restaurant was built and was intended to be a showcase for plants and shrubs that use little water, he said.

“Fullerton has a chance to really become an example and a learning experience,” Meek said. “ Vista Park is the largest park in California to use all native plants.”

Winter said that when the park was planned, the city thought a restaurant could help support the cost of maintaining the grounds.

But Councilman Chris Norby, who said he originally opposed the restaurant design, doesn’t like the mix of English Tudor and California shrubs. “I feel that the style of the building is completely inappropriate for the landscape,” he said.