Cities May Force Restaurants to Put In Grease Tanks

Hoping to reduce beach pollution, several Southern California coastal cities are exploring whether restaurants should be forced to install costly systems to dispose of cooking grease.

But restaurateurs and public officials said there isn’t enough room in some seaside business districts to bury the bulky collection tanks. And with installation costs that could reach $50,000, many mom-and-pop operations said, they cannot afford the expense without government assistance.

The situation has posed a dilemma for restaurant owners in beach communities: They want to do their part to protect the beaches that help provide their livelihoods, but they wonder how they will foot the bill.

“At least they could have given us better notice, so we could save up some money each year,” said John Gomez, owner of Love Burger in San Clemente. “I’m not a corporate operation. I’m going to be impacted a lot. And so are a lot of businesses in San Clemente. It could put us in the hole.”

Ross Bartlett, who owns two restaurants in Laguna Beach, expects to pay a hefty price. And he considers himself one of the luckier ones. The 50-year-old building housing the Jolly Roger and Laguna Beach Brewing Company sits on one of the city’s larger lots and has a spacious basement where grease collection tanks could be placed.

Still, “it’s going to be a real hardship. And I’m not going to have to jackhammer up the sidewalk like a lot of these [smaller restaurants] are going to have to do,” he said.

The push to require grease interceptors in restaurants comes amid increasing public awareness of how urban runoff and blocked sewers pollute California beaches, rivers and creeks.

Updating City Codes

A recent Orange County Grand Jury report highlighted cooking grease from restaurants as a significant cause of polluted runoff, and recommended that a countywide code be adopted to improve regulation and enforcement.

Officials and environmentalists argue that too much hot fat from skillets and fryers is sliding into subterranean sewer lines, coagulating and sticking to pipes, then hardening and causing blockages that lead to spills.

A growing number of Southern California cities are updating their codes to require grease interceptors in new restaurants. But until now, most existing restaurants have been protected by “grandfather” provisions.

In what the California Restaurant Assn. said is the first mandate of its kind in the state, the Laguna Beach City Council in August voted unanimously to require 75 restaurants to install the devices within 18 months. Similar ordinances are being considered in San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano, Newport Beach and Huntington Beach. San Diego and Oxnard require restaurants to treat cooking grease but do not mandate interceptors in all cases.

“After years of inadequate regulations, it’s finally starting to come around and bite them,” said Jon L. Kinley, a consultant helping the business districts craft new rules. “Now the cities are being forced to face the music and pay for past sins.”

In many existing restaurants, grease is collected in small traps under sinks and stoves and the cooking liquid is dumped in big barrels that are picked up regularly by hauling companies for about $30 a month.

The average grease interceptor is a 750-gallon holding tank. It measures 10 feet long, 5 feet wide and 5 feet deep. Waste water is drained from kitchen sinks and washbasins through laterals and filtered through two to three chambers, where the grease floats to the top. Outside contractors regularly pump the systems clean by stretching vacuum hoses through manhole covers.

Subsidies Suggested

Average installation costs $15,000 to $20,000. And that does not include the costs of reconfiguring plumbing systems to accommodate the traps or of digging up and restoring sidewalks.

“Our main issue is that they’re so extremely cost-prohibitive,” said Kristin Olsen, spokeswoman for the California Restaurant Assn. The group, with nearly 18,000 members, fought successfully against a similar requirement once considered by Los Angeles.

Trino Mendez, a manager at Gina’s Pizza south of Laguna Village, estimates that the work will cost about $50,000. But he said the owner, a surfer, will spend whatever it takes to keep the beaches clean.

Still, Mendez and others suggest that the city subsidize the expense.

“The city ought to stand behind some of these little guys and help them out,” Bartlett said.

For others, space is a bigger factor.

Javier’s Cantina & Grill, a Mexican restaurant in Laguna Beach, is already so squeezed for space that it shares two grease collection barrels with a few restaurants on the same block.

“Where are we going to put the interceptors?” owner Javier Sosa asked, a question echoed by the owner of Greeter’s Corner Restaurant across the street.

“If we’re going to do it, it’s going to have to be in the street,” said Jose Abbasi.

Laguna Beach officials admit that the mandate is riddled with financial and logistical challenges. Rights of way may have to be encroached. Some restaurants might lack room.

A workshop will be held Sept. 25 to review the new regulations. Meanwhile the city is checking whether state funds are available to help foot the bills. The council might consider modifying the measure after that meeting.

“The problem here is restaurants were built in a time when nobody thought about this and they are configured in such a way that there isn’t much room in the facility,” City Manager Ken Frank said. “And in some cases, there isn’t much room in the street. We have a difficult situation.”