Officials Target 2 Downtown Video Arcades for Termination : Zoning: Glendale agency finds the businesses are ‘not beneficial to the area.’ Proposed law awaits council approval.
Eric San considers himself quite an expert at “Lethal Enforcer.”
The Glendale 13-year-old has spent hours firing imaginary bullets at the images of fleeing drug dealers and bank robbers on a video game screen.
“It’s pretty intense,” he said while playing at the Glendale Amusement Center arcade on Brand Boulevard. “After a while you get hooked.”
It may be harmless fun to Eric, but Glendale officials are convinced that video arcades are bad for business and are out to do some lethal enforcing of their own. A new ordinance banning arcades from the downtown area is expected to be adopted before the end of the year. The new ordinance was drafted by zoning officials at the request of a majority of the City Council, and appears to have the support of most council members.
“The central business district isn’t doing very well right now, and the Glendale Redevelopment Agency’s position is that this type of business is not beneficial to the area,” said Edith Fuentes, the city zoning administrator.
“We’ve also received complaints from neighboring businesses” that the presence of arcades discourages customers from coming into the area, she said.
Fuentes said redevelopment officials surveyed the downtown area--roughly bounded by Colorado Street, Maryland Avenue, the Ventura Freeway and Central Avenue--and found an undesirable concentration of video arcades and billiard halls--two of each.
The ordinance’s aim is to encourage arcades to open elsewhere in the city.
If approved, it would prevent new video arcades from opening downtown. The two already in business--Glendale Amusement and Video West--could remain open for only five years or until their current leases expire.
“It’s not fair. If they don’t want arcades and pool tables in Glendale, they should close all of them, not just the ones downtown,” said Andy Shahinian, owner of Video West at 212 S. Brand Blvd.
“I have young people, adults and old people in here playing games. It’s a good place for people to just enjoy themselves, but some people just don’t like arcades, I guess,” he said.
Under the ordinance, billiard halls would still be allowed in the downtown area, although new ones would have to obtain special permits. The two pool clubs now operating--Giggle’s and Charles Billiard--would be required to obtain such permits after two years.
The ordinance would also require arcades elsewhere in the city to be at least 700 feet from schools and would prohibit new arcades from opening within 700 feet of one another.
City officials say the ordinance would also reduce security problems associated with video game parlors.
A teen-age boy was beaten by three others with a baseball bat and metal rod on July 1 at Shahinian’s arcade, but officials say the ordinance is not a response to the beating, and was being prepared long before it occurred. Most security concerns, they say, are much less serious.
“Most of the problems associated with arcades have to do with graffiti and unsupervised minors loitering,” said Sam Engel, the city’s neighborhood services coordinator.
An existing law already requires proprietors to clean up graffiti within 200 feet of their businesses, and to have a guard on hand to prevent “illegal activities”--mostly cigarette smoking by minors--on the premises, Engel said.
Planning officials said they sent out notices to all business owners who would be affected by the new law and invited them to a meeting on the ordinance that was held in May.
Still, Richard Salama, owner of Glendale Amusement, the only other arcade on Brand Boulevard, said he was unaware his business could be forced out of the downtown area.
“I don’t think (arcades are) a bad thing for the city,” said Salama. “We run a clean, family oriented business. You don’t see any gang bangers here. We have a security guard here every day.”
The ordinance is expected to be approved by both the Planning Commission and the City Council within the next few months. Glendale Mayor Eileen Givens said the council doesn’t want Glendale “to be known as the pool hall or the arcade capital of the world,” and hopes the law will encourage “a reasonable mix” of businesses.
But Shahinian, for one, said he will fight to stay downtown. He said he owns the building where the arcade is located, so the city will have a hard time evicting him.
“They’d have to force me to leave,” Shahinian said. “It’s not right to just change the ordinance and say no more arcades. This is my business, this is my everything.”
