Curbs on All-Night Stores Are Proposed

First it was fast-food drive-throughs. Now it’s all-night minimarts.

Burbank is considering new restrictions on the ubiquitous 24-hour minimarts and grocery stores that are as much a part of the local landscape as gas stations and freeways.

The city’s proposal to subject all-night markets near homes to a public review, allowing regulation of such things as hours and parking, is similar to the city’s regulation of late-night, fast-food drive-throughs.

The proposal, to be considered by the Burbank City Council later this month, is drawing fire from store owners and big companies, such as Hughes Family Markets and the Southland Corp.--the Dallas-based parent of 7-Eleven.

Burbank “is the only city in the world that would do this,” groused Jerry Biuki, the owner of two Burbank 7-Eleven franchises.

Add to that list customers such as Diana Rios, a television editor who stopped by a Burbank 7-Eleven recently at 1 a.m. and said she regards the proposal as practically an affront to patriotism.

“It’s ludicrous,” she said, heading for the Hostess rack. “To me, 7-Eleven is Americana. It’s capitalism.”

Supporters say they are trying to protect the peaceful bedroom communities of Burbank from noise and round-the-clock commercialism.

“People are kept up all night with people coming in and out” of convenience stores, said Councilman Bob Kramer, noting that many all-night marts are near homes. “We are certainly not going to put anyone out of business, but we want to make sure we have a measure of control over these operations.”

While it’s common for cities to subject new stores to extra review if they sell liquor, only Whittier in Southern California requires a conditional-use permit for 24-hour stores.

Extra scrutiny for 24-hour restaurants, though, is becoming more common. Burbank started requiring all-night restaurants near homes to get conditional-use permits in 1994 to the consternation of some restaurant owners, and last year passed an ordinance that requires them for all fast-food drive-through windows as well. Santa Monica has followed suit by banning new 24-hour drive-throughs altogether.

Throughout the state, although the number of cities that have passed rules regulating 24-hour businesses remains small, the trend has been noticeable enough to alarm companies who cater to night owls.

State Sen. Ross Johnson (R-Irvine) is sponsoring a bill that would require cities to compensate restaurant owners for lost revenues if their hours are restricted.

Cities are reacting “to people’s desire to take back their neighborhoods,” said Alberta Hultman, the assistant executive vice president of the California Restaurant Assn., which supports the bill. “They want to say, ‘Go home! It’s 1 in the morning!’ But people get off at midnight.”

The Southland Corp., which owns or licenses 16,000 7-Elevens around the world, is fearful that the idea might spread.

“This year we will open 100 new stores in the U.S., so this [Burbank’s proposed ordinance] is very important to us,” said Margaret Chabris, a Southland spokeswoman.

Chabris and others say that customers of 24-hour businesses have already voted with their feet.

“America . . . is turning into a 24-hour town,” said Teri Richman of the National Assn. of Convenience Stores in Alexandria, Va. “If these stores weren’t serving a need, they wouldn’t be there.”

Since the first 24-hour 7-Eleven opened in Las Vegas in 1963, the convenience-store industry has exploded, last year racking up sales of about $58 billion (not counting gasoline sales).

There are now 93,000 convenience stores in the country, up from 80,000 in 1990, Richman said. About 70% are open all night.

Complaints about them in Burbank are rare, city planners say. But there has been at least one contentious land-use battle in recent years over the opening of a new 24-hour mart.

More could follow if the city doesn’t regulate them more closely, warns LaVerne Thomas, a Burbank resident and member of the Rancho-Providencia Homeowners Assn.

“If they told me tomorrow that they were going to put a 7-Eleven or anything else on the corner of my street, all hell would break loose,” she said. “There would be lights over there, and this, that and the other thing.”

The proposed ordinance would require stores close to residential neighborhoods that remain open between midnight and 6 a.m. to acquire a conditional use permit, which involves a public hearing and a $500 fee. Until the matter is settled, the city has imposed a moratorium on building permits for 24-hour stores. Moreover, the City Council has said that it wants the measure to apply retroactively to existing businesses, a provision that would apply to 11 all-night markets that are close to homes. There are a total of 15 all-night stores in Burbank.

Some store owners fear that might result in a cutback in hours.

Said Sam Ezzati, who also owns two 7-Elevens in town: “I’ve been 10 years here in Burbank. I am really astonished by this.”

Ezzati said most of his late-night customers are people from nearby neighborhoods or people working night shifts. About 400 of the 1,400 customers he gets per store on a typical day come between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.

“They are out of milk. Or their child has a fever,” Ezzati said. “This does not hurt me. This will hurt the community.”

“We see being open 24 hours as a service,” echoed Mike Shultz, a spokesman for Hughes Family Markets.

The state allows stores to sell alcohol until 2 a.m. Besides beer, late-night customers typically buy milk, over-the-counter medicines, cigarettes and coffee--especially coffee.

“I work for California Overnight. . . . I need coffee to stay awake,” said Pablo Pelayo, who dropped by one of Ezzati’s 7-Elevens shortly after midnight recently, early in his shift as a parcel sorter.

Some nocturnal shoppers who were asked about the proposal seemed to view the ability to buy Cheetos at 4 a.m. not just as a convenience, but as a cherished personal freedom.

“I like Burbank, but there’s some kind of fascist thing going on here,” said Kent Geib, an illustrator on a midnight cookies-and-milk run at one of Ezzati’s stores recently.

Far from restricting all-night minimarts in residential areas, “I would like one at the end of my street,” he said.

Devar Pack, a 70-year-old delivery driver and frequent 7-Eleven patron, says such stores are a consolation to insomniacs. “When I can’t sleep, I sometimes get up at 2 a.m. and drive the freeways,” he said. “But first I stop for a Super Big Gulp.”

Said Pack, who consumes two of these beverages a day: “I don’t drink liquor. But I like my Super Big Gulp. . . . Doesn’t the Burbank City Council have anything to do?”

Rios said she sometimes works through the night at CBS, and “if I couldn’t come here, I would die of starvation.”