OJAI : Group Urges Board to Reject Drugstore

Environmentalists in Ojai have renewed their fight against a proposed discount drugstore, saying the outlet would worsen traffic on California 33 and increase air pollution in the valley.

In an appeal filed Monday, the president of Citizens to Preserve the Ojai asked the Board of Supervisors to overturn the county Planning Department’s approval of a PayLess drugstore in Mira Monte.

The Oregon-based chain wants to open an 8,000-square-foot store in the building previously occupied by the Valley Market on California 33, and the Planning Department signed off on the project in August, viewing it as a routine change of tenants in an existing building.

The latest appeal against PayLess comes after the Planning Commission rejected a similar request during a hearing last month.

The appeal will now go to the supervisors for a decision sometime in January, said county planner Emily Habib.

In the one-page document filed Monday, Stan Greene, president of Citizens to Preserve the Ojai, said PayLess would attract customers from a much larger area than the Valley Market did. As a result, he said, traffic on the already congested thoroughfare would increase.

A traffic study commissioned by PayLess concluded that a drugstore would add 23 fewer cars to the highway at peak traffic times than the Valley Market.

Ted Moore, a commercial real estate developer representing PayLess, acknowledged that the discount store will draw customers from a regional area. But he said the Valley Market also attracted patrons from a larger area.

“People simply go to drugstores less frequently than they go to supermarkets,” he said.

Since the project surfaced in Ojai last July, PayLess has been at the center of a debate over discount and chain stores. Fearing that such outlets would drive smaller merchants out of business, some environmentalists and merchants have lobbied for stricter planning regulations to block such development.