Dance Permit to Be Decided for Restaurant

A proposed restaurant supported by City Councilman Nate Holden but opposed by competing Koreatown businesses and some residents faces its final regulatory hurdle Wednesday, when a review board is scheduled to decide whether to grant owners a police permit to allow dancing.

Those who have resisted the club--including the Los Angeles Police Department--say Koreatown has too many nightclubs, which often are troubled by vice and violent crimes, according to LAPD statistics.

The Los Angeles Police Commission’s Permit Review Panel must now decide whether to grant a dance permit for the proposed 17,000-square-foot club, called Le Prive, which would be near the intersection of Western Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard.

Dancing is the last activity to be approved for the project, which has city approval to open. The club’s owners call it a restaurant, but opponents say that with a dance permit, Le Prive will be a discotheque.

Opposition to dancing at the club has been so strong that other City Council members have openly opposed Holden, who represents the neighborhood. It is an unusual dispute because council members typically refrain from criticizing projects in other members’ districts.

At a council meeting in January, several members spoke against dancing at the club. Councilwoman Rita Walters said “there is an over-concentration of liquor licenses and girlie clubs” in the area.

Harrison Yim, managing partner of the club, declined to be interviewed for this story.

Holden said opponents of the project were mainly competing Korean American nightclub owners. “Those who come here,” Holden said, “have to understand a person has a right to start a business as long as he complies with the law.”

Holden’s arguments prevailed, and the council approved dancing at the club in January. The police permit is the next step.

Neighborhood residents and members of Korean American groups have spoken against the club at past police permit hearings. They complain that the club is next to two apartment buildings and that it would contribute to parking, noise and alcohol-related problems in the neighborhood.

Janny Kim, president of the UC Riverside Korean American Students Assn., said Koreatown nightclubs attract many underage college students.

Fights have erupted into shootings and are a regular problem, she said. “We need to solve the problems at the existing clubs before we open another one,” said Kim.

LAPD Capt. David J. Powers said the department has always opposed allowing dancing at the club. This stretch of Western Avenue has the highest concentration of crime in the LAPD’s Wilshire Division, Powers said.

Although the high crime is linked to high traffic and density, Powers said, “historically, there have been some problems with nightclubs.”

Powers pointed out that the club’s owners call it a restaurant in permit applications but have advertised it as a nightclub. An employment ad last year in the Korea Times newspaper described Le Prive as “the biggest nightclub.”

The nightclub became an issue in Holden’s 1999 reelection campaign. The nightclub’s owners and their families donated more than $6,000 to Holden’s reelection last year and the failed Pasadena mayoral run of his son, Chris Holden.