YORBA LINDA : Council to Decide on Pool Hall’s Licensing

The City Council will decide today whether to license the opening of a local billiard business that has drawn opposition from its prospective neighbors.

The Planning Commission has already opposed the project, and the council must decide whether the Yorba Linda Family Pizza and Entertainment center will be a pool hall that might attract gangs and bored teen-agers or a billiard parlor serving families and white-collar professionals.

Neighbors and businesses in the Lakeview Shopping Center say the project would be a drag on nearby businesses.

“This type of business will eventually become a hangout and will only bring additional problems to an area already plagued by gangs, drugs and graffiti,” Mike Aversa said. “A pool hall, which is open very late in the evening, will do nothing but attract outsiders into our community.”

But prospective owners David Duncan, Maureen Holthe and Tom Laspada call their proposed establishment a billiards center.

They cite statistics that show billiards is popular among middle-class families and college graduates.

“The smoky pool hall is a thing of the past. New (billiards) rooms are opening across the country that are family-oriented and offer a very comfortable atmosphere for the young and the old,” the three partners wrote in a letter to the Planning Commission.

The Planning Commission rejected Yorba Linda Family Pizza and Entertainment’s application last November, citing insufficient parking and opposition from nearby residents and other businesses in the shopping center.

Opponents also turned in a petition with more than 1,200 signatures.

The most visible opposition to the project came from residents of Villa Pacifica, a nearby senior citizens apartment complex whose residents walk to a grocery store in the shopping center.

Several residents have said they would not feel safe in the shopping center if the billiards center opened there.

But the project is not without supporters, mostly residents who have met Duncan and Laspada at the pair’s other local business, Yorba Linda Bowl.

“My son grew up at Yorba Linda Bowl,” said Ron Sakahara, an architect who has lived here for 13 years. “I know both (Duncan and Laspada), and I think what they want to do is great.”

Sakahara, who plays at pool clubs around the county, is impressed with the plan to keep the proposed billiards center a nonalcoholic, smoke-free facility.

“With the junior program they want to introduce there, it would become a real family environment,” he said. “We need more places like this in Yorba Linda.”