State to Suspend Liquor License of Landmark Rendezvous Bar

Prompted by complaints that a downtown bar sold so much alcohol to a 14-year-old boy that he had to be hospitalized, state inspectors plan to shut down the Rendezvous Room on Friday.

The historic watering hole’s liquor license will be suspended for 20 days for selling liquor to a minor, said Ed Macias, district supervisor for the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.

But this may be the Rendezvous Room’s last chance. The bar has been caught selling alcohol to minors before, Macias said.

“We have a three-strike rule in California,” he said. “It’s two strikes with this. The next one we will probably revoke the license.”

But owner Janie Robinson said she is moving on anyway.

“I’m just going to quit,” she said. “I don’t like the police storefront here.”

A storefront station sits across Main Street from the Rendezvous, which once served as City Hall and the Ventura County courthouse.

The bar’s closure comes at a time when the city is intensifying its downtown revitalization efforts--beautifying the streets and building a movie theater and parking garage. Developers are snapping up real estate for shops and restaurants.

City officials denied there is any thrust to close downtown bars, but they pointed out that half the city’s liquor licenses are held by establishments within a 2 1/2-mile radius of the Westside Police Storefront off Olive Street.

“I wouldn’t say there is a push to get rid of them,” said Officer Terri Vujea, who works at the storefront station on Main Street. “But if there is an opportunity for them to become something else, we would support that.”

Bar owner Robinson predicts that days are numbered for other such bars on Main Street, as well. Her older brother owns the Star Lounge up the street--and she predicts he will be gone soon too.

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The move to shut down the Rendezvous Room was set in motion by West Ventura Partners in Prevention--a community volunteer group. Armed with a $58,000 grant from Ventura County to help reduce youth access to alcohol, the group is fighting to keep kids safe on Ventura’s west side, volunteer Sharon Troll said.

“If you sell to our children, we will come at you with everything legally we can,” Troll said. “We will be relentless.”

So when Troll got a call from a tearful mother who said her 14-year-old son had been found on the sidewalk outside the Rendezvous so drunk he had to be hospitalized, Troll took action.

She got paperwork from the Ventura Police Department, and brought it to the attention of Macias at the state agency.

That was in June, but it has taken this long to move forward, Macias said.

Community activists from the Ventura group, as well as similar groups in Oxnard, will be on hand Friday with signs to support the closure, and encourage others to get involved in monitoring alcohol retail outlets, Troll said.

The closure of the bar will end a storied chapter in county history.

Originally built in the 1860s, the then two-story structure opened as Spear’s Saloon and was also home to the first Ventura City Council.

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When the City Council moved from the second floor in the early 1870s, the county courts moved in. Legend has it that the judge used to stamp his feet as closing arguments drew near--so the bartender below could prepare drinks.

An earthquake in the 1930s knocked off the second floor.

For the past 30 years, the bar has thrived as one of Ventura’s best-known. On Wednesday afternoon, the bar was packed with regulars--beer flowing freely and the air thick with cigarette smoke. Lazy country songs played on the juke box.

Director of Community Services Everett Millais was surprised to hear the bar would close.

“That is an historic dive bar,” he said, adding the city has received inquiries in recent weeks from people interested in purchasing it.

“People will be looking at doing seismic retrogrades, to keep the original building,” he said. “It’s almost a better building than the Peirano building.”

As for owner Robinson, she is sad to close after 30 years. But she has other things to do.

“I’ll go to Tennessee to see my son, and walk my poodle on the beach,” she said.