City Extends Drive-Through Restaurant Ban

It will be at least another year before any new drive-through fast-food restaurants and takeout eateries open in South Pasadena.

The City Council late Wednesday extended a moratorium for 12 months on everything from mom-and-pop hamburger joints to franchise restaurants.

Citing fears that fast-food outlets erode the character of the small town and escalate traffic problems along its main corridors, the council unanimously renewed the nearly year-old moratorium. The vote means a McDonald’s built more than decade ago remains the sole drive-through restaurant in town.

Officials said the city of 24,000 people will soon consider joining Sierra Madre and West Hollywood in outlawing any new drive-through restaurants.

Mayor Dorothy Cohen said she likes Sierra Madre’s recent ban.

“I’m against fast-food drive-through establishments, period,” Cohen said.

She said such a ban strikes a chord in the community, where preservation and development go hand in hand.

Cohen said she expects her position to be supported by the council. The present moratorium on new fast-food restaurants came on the heels of a decision by the majority of the five-member council to put a lid on plans for a drive-through Jack in the Box.

In supporting that vote last year, Councilman Dick Richards said that adding fast-food restaurants along Fair Oaks Avenue could conflict with the city’s plans to use that road as a street-based alternative to the proposed Long Beach Freeway extension. For more than 30 years, residents have fought the highway that would cut through the city.