Yesterday the Santa Ana Planning Commission was asked to consider a Conditional Use Permit requested by the owners of the new Buffalo Wild Wings Restaurant that is supposed to open up at 1945 East Seventeenth St., over by Tustin Ave. This is the new building that you may have seen being built next to OSH.
The CUP involved granting an Alcohol Beverage License and allowing this new restaurant to be open after-hours.
Normally this type of CUP would be no big deal, but a number of residents in the immediate area showed up and were not happy about this restaurant opening up literally in their backyard.
Santa Ana Businessman Mike Tardiff, who also resides in the area, sent me these comments regarding this development and the CUP request:
Buffalo Wild Wings sports bar is asking for an exception from the code via a Conditional Use Permit. They are requesting to stay open until midnight during the week — and until 1:00 am on Friday and Saturday nights. These operational hours will place an extreme hardship on residents of Parkwood, Meredith and Portola neighborhoods.
These are homes of Santa Ana working families. Many of whom go to bed early in order to wake early for work. You can imagine the hardship placed on these residents when any number of noises generated by extended hours wake them at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning.
Noises such as car doors opening and closing, car alarms, loud patrons and employees leaving the sports bar, loud music and engine noises from vehicles and many more. This will be a difficult situation for residents to cope with even if the business were to operate during normal hours of restaurant opening and closing.
The noise and other problems will negatively effect property values in the neighborhood. This will discourage home ownership and encourage more rentals. This will lead to increased graffiti and crime for the entire neighborhood, not just those residents immediately adjacent to Buffalo Wild Wings.
Buffalo Wild Wings should not be granted an exception to the code to be able to operate into the early morning hours.
They should be required to operate by the same rules as other restaurants in Santa Ana which the Planning Commission has restricted to 10:00 pm closing.
Planning Commissioner Harvey De La Torre decided to fight for the residents and he ended up tangling with his fellow Commissioner, Sean MIll. I believe that George Collins has put some of the audio, if not the video, up at his website, Santa Ana Insight.
Mill brought up an interesting point – De La Torre was happy to give the Crosby bar everything they wanted when the Planning Commission considered the Crosby’s CUP. Here’s the rub – the owners of the Crosby are newcomers to the bar and restaurant business, while the owners of the Buffalo Wild Wings Restaurant are seasoned pros who have had success in locations all over the United States.
Ultimately De La Torre voted along with Mill and the other Commissioners to grant the CUP request to Buffalo Wild Wings.
Normally I would side with the residents in matters like these, but I agree in this case with Mill. We need businesses like this in our town. They will bring tax revenue and give folks something to do locally. And I don’t think they will be such awful neighbors. I live a ten minute walk away from the MainPlace Mall and the CityPlace. There are restaurants in both locations and I have never observed any issues. But I don’t like that McCormick & Schmick’s closes at ten p.m. That is far too early.
Furthermore, I don’t buy that clients of this new restaurant will be cutting through neighborhood streets to get to Buffalo Wild Wings. They will use Seventeenth and Tustin. And the location is freeway close.
Mill also brought up a few good points – this place is a sports bar. Of course they have to be open early on Sundays and later during the week. That makes sense to me.
I am a lot more upset about the stupid luxury condo tower that developer Robert Bisno wants to build near the Park Santiago neighborhood. That project will dump thousands of cars onto an already crowded Main St. But this new restaurant doesn’t look to be anything more than a neat new place to hang out. I really can’t fault the Planning Commission for approving the CUP.
I do feel bad for the owners of this new restaurant. Little do they know what they are in for! I hope their business does not get tagged, robbed and shot at.
Readers? What say you?
Art Lomeli,
In my opinion, the reason that the the City is hell bent on ramming through the CUP for Buffalo Wild Wings to operate into the early morning hours is the increased tax revenue.
Buffalo Wild Wings needs a return on their investment through sales. And the City needs their sales tax revenue.
All that would be fine except that none of them give a damn about the residents whose lives are going to made miserable by the extended hours.
I recently spoke to the owner of a sports bar near BWW – which also adjoins residential property. I was told that one of the reasons they opted to not not apply for a CUP to operate past 12:00 midnight was because after 12:00 you are dealing with the “loser” crowd. Nice, huh?
I have a question. OK, so this is a sports bar, right? And all televised sports, whether on the east coast or the left coast are over by 10:00 – 10:30, right?
Why then does a “sports bar” need to stay open past 11:00 pm on any night? The games are over !
Art
You are mis quoting me. Take a serious llook at what I wrote. It’s NOT the Zoning or General plan that’s out of wack. It is the ultimate design and layout of the development project that does not jive with the plan as approved by council. To make the changes that the Planning Dept administratively approved, required a public hearing and City Council approval. The Env review also requires updating.
Yes you did truly understand, however, that without these issues resolved, the CUP for the liquor license is mute.
I wish that our Commissioners were as attentive as you. They completely missed the big picture. None of this, in my opinion is legal.
Tom,
Another point is that the CEQA exemption the City is claiming, to exempt themselves from having to provide a new EIR, is based on an existing structure.
There was no existing structure – this was an empty field. The whole thing is a kettle of boiling, stinking, rotten fish.
response to Mike. This was a vacant lot however did you fail to mention that before it was vacant, it was a car lot?? When you buy ajacent to a vacant lot you are throwing the dice. It will be developed one way or another. I was at the meeting of the Planning Commission and heard many concessions being made from BWW. I think the owners and managers were willing to do alot to appease the residents. It is going to be hard to hand pick the business you want behind your home unless you own the land.