Permit Won for Restaurant With Dancing

After hearing the owners of a restaurant promise to hire three guards to provide 24-hour security, the Planning Commission has granted Nancy and Larry Nguyen a conditional-use permit for their business.

The manager of a nearby apartment complex, however, objected to the restaurant, which will feature ballroom dancing, saying she had a sinking feeling that the establishment would ultimately turn into a noise-filled bar.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” said Connie LoBello, the manager of Plaza Woods apartments at Plaza Way and Beach Boulevard. “It’s going to turn into a nightclub.”

But Nancy Nguyen assured the commission that the establishment, which will be owned and operated by the couple, would cater to older folks. She said the $10 cover charge to enter and the traditional Vietnamese music she plans to play would be enough to discourage the younger generation from attending.

“There is not going to be any disco,” she said. “I guarantee to you that younger folks are not going to pay such prices to hear slow music.”

Miguel Carvajal, owner of the La Bamba bar near the the site of the proposed restaurant, said he wanted assurance that the Nguyens’ restaurant would never become Latino-oriented or provide Spanish music and food.

Too many bars in the area, he said, have embraced the Latino culture and cuisine, dropping their original ethnicity and drawing business away from him.

But City Atty. Tom Allen and Mark Lloyd, the city’s development services director, said the commission could not make such promises.

In the end, commissioner Roberta Allen-Latiner made a motion to approve the permit.

“I remember learning how to ballroom dance as a girl,” she said. “I remember the cha-cha-cha and the waltz, and this place will never be solely a bar. It’s not that kind of animal.”

Commissioner Frederick Clay was the lone dissenter, saying there are already too many businesses with liquor licenses in the area.