2 Restaurants on Pier OKd Despite Alcohol Complaint : Entertainment: The new nightclub-style eateries will provide space for about 950 patrons.

Despite protests that they are saturating the city with alcohol outlets, the Santa Monica City Council on Tuesday approved two nightclub-restaurants for the pier.

The projects, which will add about 950 seats where alcohol can be served, were before the council on an appeal by resident Stephanie Barbanell, who contends that the city has ruined her beach neighborhood with its alcohol policies.

“The alcohol! The alcohol! The alcohol!” Barbanell said at the hearing. “That’s all this is about. It’s the alcohol. . . . You guys are adding to our harm, our risk, our danger.”

But attorney Rosario Perry, who also lives in the vicinity of the pier, said the anti-alcohol forces need to lighten up in their view that liquor is the root of evils ranging from crime to the spread of infections.

“I drink a lot of alcohol and I’m proud of it,” said Perry, injecting a bit of levity in the tense proceedings. “God willing, I’ll be drinking for a lot more years and not get in trouble.”

Councilman Dennis Zane said that both projects are “high-quality entertainment venues” and that the efforts to link every place that serves alcohol with crime are “misleading and unfortunate.”

The hearings had been postponed for two weeks to allow time for Police Chief James T. Butts to study the impact of the additional alcohol outlets. Comparing the number of arrests at the nearby Promenade before and after its resurgence, Butts found that arrests for assaults and disorderly conduct are up, but he said he could not conclude that the increase could be linked to the distribution of alcohol.

Barbanell countered that 11% of all calls for police service in the last four months were from the two-block radius surrounding the pier, which she contends will only get worse when the entertainment venues are in place. “I’m disappointed in Chief Butts,” she said.

The vote on the larger of the two projects, Sinbad’s, was 5 to 2, with Mayor Ken Genser and Councilman Kelly Olsen voting not to issue the permit to sell alcohol.

Sinbad’s will be a nearly 700-seat facility, with three venues in one. Its centerpiece will be a 400-seat theater for live performances. A “tablecloth and candlestick restaurant” seating 200 will be on the top floor, and an 85-seat family restaurant is planned for the ground floor.

Sinbad’s operator Russ Barnard said the size was dictated by the historic building he has agreed to restore on The pier. Also, Barnard told the council, 400 seats are needed to attract the caliber of performers he hopes to book.

The second project is a reprise of the Ash Grove, a legendary Los Angeles music club from the ‘60s and ‘70s. It will have 250 seats.

The vote on the Ash Grove project was 6 to 1, with Genser joining the majority in approving the smaller facility.

Genser and Olsen on both projects said they objected to allowing 50% of sales to be for alcohol. They supported keeping the alcohol sales to 35%.”We’re really getting a drinking establishment here,” said Olsen.

But Barnard said his experience in running the neighborhood restaurant, Tavern on Main, had taught him that you can’t legislate what customers will buy. He said that the moderately priced Tavern used to do 40% of its business in alcohol sales but changed to 65% once people began cutting back on food purchases because of the recession.

If operators must keep alcohol sales under 35%, operators will be forced to raise food prices or cover charges in order to comply, Barnard said, which would put the entertainment out of reach for many people.

Olsen, however, urged his fellow council members to look at the long-term policy issues. “We don’t have to keep perpetuating this concept that every business to be successful has to (be) an alcohol outlet,” he said. “How much of the pier and how much of Santa Monica do we want to be a regional attraction? That’s not what I’m hearing the residents of Santa Monica want.”