TUSTIN : No Dice on New Fortuneteller Shop

It was just not in the cards for Ronnie and Dina Lee.

Hoping to expand their fortunetelling business, the couple had requested that the City Council approve a zoning change for a vacant building at 14122 Red Hill Ave., where they had hoped to set up a second shop.

No dice, the council said Monday.

Voting 4 to 0, with Councilman Jeffrey M. Thomas absent, the council upheld the Planning Commission’s Dec. 14 decision denying a request to change the current zoning from commercial general to retail commercial that would have permitted fortunetelling.

Under the city’s general land-use plan, fortunetelling is among several types of businesses not allowed in commercial-general districts but permitted in retail-commercial zones.

“It’s politics,” said Ronnie Lee, who with his wife, Dina, has been telling fortunes for money for the past seven years. The Lees operate a similar business at McFadden and Newport avenues here. “They just don’t like my kind of business.”

The Lees had wanted to lease the 2,448-foot vacant building, which was formerly a single-family residence and later used as an attorney and a real estate office.

However, residents concerned about what they called “harmful” effects of the business in their neighborhood fought against the Lees’ request both at the Planning Commission and the City Council.

Mary Ellen Daly, who owns an apartment complex close to the proposed business site, said allowing the fortunetelling business would “lower the cultural standard” of the area further. Also, she said the business is close to residences and several schools.

Marge Mayer, who described herself as a longtime Tustin resident, said the business would have “harmful influence on morals.”

“Children will be in contact (with it); they pass directly in front of the business in going to and from school,” she said.

However, Robert Berke, an attorney representing the Lees, said it was “incongruous that in a depressed economy, the council would deny putting up a business in a vacant property.”

He said a study of the impacts of the business has shown that these would not be “significant.” Potential noise, glare from the signs and other problems could be mitigated by adjusting the time the business would be open.

Berke also said several businesses close to the proposed site are already designated as retail-commercial.

A service station to the north of the property and a shopping center to the west are both designated retail-commercial properties. To the east and south is an apartment complex with a multiple-family residential district designation.

Councilman Thomas R. Saltarelli, who joined Mayor Leslie Anne Pontious, Mayor Pro Tem Jim Potts and Councilman Charles E. Puckett in denying the zone change, said there is no compelling reason to make the change.

“This is strictly a zoning issue and I’m in support of not overturning the Planning Commission decision,” he said.