Pizza Parlor May Open in Nightclub Site

A family-oriented pizza parlor wants to move into a building that authorities once described as the most notorious watering hole in the city.

ShowBiz Pizza Time Inc., owners of the Chuck E. Cheese restaurant chain, wants to move into the West Hillcrest Drive building that used to house the Stargate nightclub and Baja Grille.

The Irving, Texas-based company also wants to renovate the 10-year-old, 10,532-square-foot building, which is part of the Lincoln Oaks shopping center.

If the Planning Commission approves the plan Sept. 29, the restaurant would be ready for business next year. A special use permit is needed because the restaurant would have 31 arcade games.

“It’s great to get a tenant in there and not have an empty building,” said James Friedl Jr., deputy city attorney.

Last summer, Friedl, city planners and Ventura County sheriff’s deputies presented the City Council with a 124-page staff report identifying the club as a haven for gang members.

The council voted to uphold the Planning Commission’s recommendation to revoke the club’s permits for drinking and dancing. It was the first time--and is still the only time--a nightclub permit had been revoked in Thousand Oaks, according to Sheriff’s Capt. Mike Brown.

Although the club was open only from early 1995 through mid-1996, sheriff’s deputies responded to numerous complaints of brawls, stabbings and even some shots fired, he said.

As many as 500 people showed up on Friday and Saturday nights, many of them members of rival gangs based in Ventura and Los Angeles counties, Brown said.

“It was just a matter of time before somebody would be fatally injured,” he said. “We were responding down there pretty much nightly. We would have to go down there with three or four patrol cars routinely. We’d be there sometimes for 1 1/2 hours. There were very few patrol cars left to patrol the rest of the city.”

He recalled times when fights broke out in front of uniformed deputies.

“There was just an utter disregard for law and order,” Brown said.

Meetings between police and nightclub owner Emre Sarihan failed to improve the situation, even after a weekly Teen Night was discontinued.

On June 13, 1996--two days after the nightclub permit was revoked--Sarihan filed for Chapter 11 protection in federal bankruptcy court.

He closed down the operation less than two weeks later.

The building had previously housed the Avenues and Red Onion restaurants and nightclubs, under different ownership, but those establishments did not give police anywhere near as many headaches, Brown said.

Thousand Oaks attorney Chuck Cohen, who represented Sarihan, said he thinks there is a demand for local nightclubs, but that the cost of operation is high.

“It requires very strict management,” he said. “The City Council ultimately decided the operation remained over the edge of being a nuisance.”

Before approval is granted to ShowBiz, its executives and city officials must agree upon the size and number of signs that will be permitted on the building.

The firm wants to put signs on all four sides of the building, but local ordinances say signs may be placed only on two sides adjacent to major streets.

“If both sides cooperate, there should not be a problem,” said Haider Alawami, associate city planner. “We feel that’s going to be a great use for that building.”

Dick Huston, ShowBiz’s executive vice president for marketing, said the company wants to add Thousand Oaks to its chain of 325 restaurants in 44 states. The first restaurant opened in San Jose 20 years ago.

“The demographics are great,” he said. “There are a lot of families. It’s a growing area. It’s just the right place to be.”