Revoking permit is the right thing to do
The Burbank Planning Commission did the sensible, responsible thing
for public and police safety, and for taxpayers’ wallets, by voting
to recommend that the conditional use permit for Gitana Restaurant be
revoked.
The commission on Monday voted unanimously to tell the Burbank
City Council that the permit should be taken away from the nightclub
at 260 E. Magnolia Ave., almost solely because of the excessive
number of fights and police calls there in the past nine months.
If the City Council votes to revoke Gitana’s use permit, the
nightclub probably would be forced to close, since a permit is
required to legally operate a business of that type in Burbank.
Perhaps closing, at least for the time being, wouldn’t be such a
bad idea for Gitana, because what’s been going on while the
nightclub’s been open hasn’t exactly been earning the business a lot
friends, save for those who like to fight there. After several months
of simply absorbing the cost and hassle of making several calls per
month to the restaurant, responding to reports of fights, the Burbank
Police Department in May began billing Gitana for service calls
beyond the three per month allowed under its conditional use permit.
“What we’re trying to do is prevent a homicide,” Burbank Police
Capt. Ed Skavarna told the Planning Commission. “We do not like the
situation, and do not want it to stay as it is.”
Gitana was billed $6,779 for 63 excessive police calls from
October through May, an average of nearly eight more calls per month
than allowed under the club’s CUP. Club officials, many of whom
attended the commission’s meeting on Monday, protested, saying the
fights in question usually happen outside the club, not in the
building itself. “We don’t have any problems inside,” owner Jackie
DeLeon told the Planning Commission on Monday. “All the problems are
in the parking lot, and some in the patio.”
Maybe so, but it’s not because people randomly walking by stroll
onto the patio and parking lot and start picking fights. It’s because
people in Gitana, or perhaps coming into or going from it, get into
some kind of tiff and decide to square off, with alcohol usually
playing a big role. And it’s not as though the patio and parking lot
are across the street and down the block. They’re both adjacent to
the main building. When you’re sitting on Gitana’s patio, you’re at
the restaurant. Servers come out and ask you what you want. It’s part
of the business. So DeLeon’s argument is pretty specious.
More to the point, three police calls per month for any
establishment is a lot to begin with. That number is built into a
conditional-use permit to accommodate a worst-case scenario at one
spot, usually involving bad luck and bad timing. Gitana’s public
safety problem has blown through the acceptable-limit ceiling and now
is a regular monthly issue, not an unfortunate series of
coincidences. Despite club representatives’ assurance that things are
getting better, they clearly are not. Six police calls were required
there in June -- three more than allowed under the CUP -- and three
in the first two weeks of July, with the second half of the month not
reported yet. If those numbers are considered an improvement by club
officials, it’s an improvement from “horrible” to “really bad.”
The City Council should decide quickly that Gitana now constitutes
a public nuisance, and follow the Planning Commission’s
recommendation that its conditional-use permit be revoked. Closing
the doors, letting some time pass, and reopening a few months down
the road with a new name and unsullied reputation are perhaps the
only things that will solve this problem.