Citizens Group Fears Impact of Chain Store : Ojai: Environmentalists will tell county that a consultant incorrectly assessed the effects of a proposed Pay Less drug outlet.

For 25 years, Nancy Kruschke has greeted customers by name at the Ojai Village Pharmacy, a vine-covered shop that is one of five independent drugstores in the Ojai Valley.

“There’s a lot of history in this store,” she said, looking around the office that was a kitchen when the drugstore served hot lunches. “We have people still shopping here that grew up in town, married, had their own children and now have grandchildren.”

These days, however, Kruschke is uncertain of the Village Pharmacy’s future.

That’s because Pay Less Drug Stores, a discount chain with 545 outlets in 11 Western states, wants to open a store just 3 1/2 miles down the valley’s main thoroughfare.

“It’s going to be tough. It’s going to be real tough,” Kruschke said of the competition that Pay Less will bring.

Others in the picturesque valley see Pay Less as part of a broader issue: They argue that discount stores overwhelm small merchants, creating a homogeneous landscape and blotting out a community’s character.

To that end, the environmental group Citizens to Preserve the Ojai has filed an appeal against Pay Less’ proposal to open an 8,000-square-foot store in Mira Monte, just south of Ojai.

The appeal--which challenges a traffic study performed by a Santa Barbara consulting firm--is scheduled to be heard by the Ventura County Planning Commission today. The commission’s meeting begins at 8:30 a.m. in the county government center at 800 S. Victoria Ave.

Today’s meeting will mark the first time Pay Less’ plans for Mira Monte have been aired in a public forum. Because the 8,000-square-foot building sits in an unincorporated area, no public hearing was needed, and county planners signed off on the routine permit in October.

The appeal by Citizens to Preserve the Ojai centers on a traffic study showing that Pay Less would attract 308 fewer car trips per day than the Valley Market, which used to inhabit the store, and add 23 fewer car trips to California 33 at rush hour.

“It was a poor study,” said Stan Greene, president of the environmental group.

In addition to traffic considerations, Greene said, county officials “need to look at any large enterprise in terms of its impact on the general welfare of the community.”

Ted Moore, an Ojai resident who represents Pay Less locally, could not be reached for comment.

But not everyone in the Ojai Valley believes that Pay Less, or other chain stores, will destroy the area’s character. Imposing further restrictions on commercial development, they say, impinges on free enterprise.

Marva Hollebrands, owner of the Blazing Shears beauty shop in Mira Monte, thinks the threat to small merchants in downtown Ojai has been overblown.

“We’re more upset about the Ojai people who can’t keep their noses out of our business,” she said. “They need real issues to worry about. This is not a real issue.”

The controversy over Pay Less began in July, when the company announced a tentative agreement to buy Ojai’s only bowling alley. But that plan was dropped after residents and merchants packed a city Planning Commission meeting in August to voice their opposition.

It was not the first time the city gave a chilly reception to a national chain. In 1979, the City Council passed an emergency zoning ordinance that blocked plans for a Wendy’s fast-food restaurant on Ojai Avenue.

Wencal Management Inc., which owns Wendy’s, sued the city for violation of property rights and won a $15,000 settlement.

Opponents of Pay Less have formed a group called Citizens for a Chain-Free Ojai. But they say they are not opposed to all chains, only the mega-stores that offer deep discounts and thus drive off local merchants.

Ray King, a retired engineer from Los Angeles, said his opposition to Pay Less grew after reading the 1994 book “How Superstore Sprawl Can Harm Communities.”

“Discount stores tend to suck the downtown dry,” said King, whose back yard looks out on the proposed Pay Less site. “And when you lose your downtown, you lose your sense of community.

“You end up with a homogenous kind of world.”

Last month, the anti-chain activists persuaded a citizens’ committee studying development in the Ojai Valley to endorse guidelines that would make it more difficult for chain stores to move into existing buildings. If adopted by the Board of Supervisors, the regulations would require a public hearing for a change of tenants in buildings that are more than 5,000 square feet in area.

“When things are exposed to the public, everybody knows what’s going on and can have a say,” said Len Klaif, an attorney and massage therapist who formed Citizens for a Chain-Free Ojai.

But even if those restrictions are adopted, they will apply only to new projects and would not affect Pay Less.

Lannie Springer thinks Oak View residents may benefit from the Pay Less because it may reduce the number of Ojai shoppers driving through their community to reach discount drugstores in Ventura.

Springer, the unofficial mayor of Oak View and a member of the citizens development committee, voted against the public-hearing requirement. If people are unhappy with discount stores, she said, they should organize boycotts, not lobby the county to pass more rules.

“To tie a person’s hands on what they can do with their property, it’s just beyond my understanding,” she said.