Getting a Taste of Belly Dancing

La Verne’s only Mediterranean restaurant has danced its way over complaints from senior citizens in nearby mobile homes, receiving City Council approval to have belly dancers perform on its patio for a three-month trial period, beginning this weekend.

More than two dozen people from La Verne Mobile Country Club and Fountains Mobile Home Park showed up at a City Council meeting last month to hear Grapevine Restaurant’s belly dancing plans, said 84-year-old Helen Thompson. A concrete block wall separates Thompson’s home from the restaurant.

“I don’t know anything about belly dancing,” said Thompson, who said the restaurant’s beef kebabs were too tough to chew. “It sounds sort of bad. Maybe it isn’t. I don’t know. I would prefer that it not be there.”

After a conditional permit was approved in May by La Verne’s Planning Commission, some mobile home residents concerned about noise complained that they hadn’t been properly notified, prompting the mayor to file an appeal to the City Council.

The council turned down the appeal and voted 3 to 2 on June 20 to allow belly dancers at Grapevine, located in a renovated blue-gray Victorian house on Foothill Boulevard off the 210 Freeway. At least five midriff-baring dancers will perform to prerecorded music until 9:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays in front of the restaurant’s outdoor waterfall, said Jessica Gonzalez, Grapevine’s account manager. The restaurant plans to have the dancers play castanets, she added.

Restaurants that want belly dancing must get city conditional-use permits for live entertainment. After three months, the city will consider complaints and disturbances and decide whether to allow the belly dancing to continue, Councilman Steven F. Johnson said.

Gonzalez said the restaurant applied for the permit in April after hearing that a competing Mediterranean restaurant in Glendora had belly dancing. The competing restaurant is about a seven-minute drive away.

Stan Wong, Glendora’s director of planning and redevelopment, said he has seen a trend in the last six or seven years among Middle Eastern restaurants applying for belly dancing permits.

Grapevine will be the first restaurant to offer belly dancing in La Verne, a quiet city of about 32,000 in the San Gabriel Valley that also offers two types of belly dancing classes in its community center.

Joe Kouchakian, owner of Mediterranean Garden Grill in Monrovia, sympathizes with Grapevine’s struggle. The Garden Grill got its permit two months ago with only a few inquiries from residents.

To Kouchakian, “belly dancing puts the last touch on the Mediterranean food.” Mediterranean dining without belly dancing is like Italian food without olive oil or going to see a concert without seeing the singer, Kouchakian said passionately.

Some senior citizens near Grapevine fear sleepless nights ahead. Even without the belly dancing, there were complaints.

“The music was so loud and so different,” Thompson said, as she tried to imitate the sound of the music. “It was just very annoying.”

Others from the mobile home park say they look forward to trying it.

“I’d like to go see the belly dancers, actually,” said 70-year-old Evelyn Gonnella, who plans to take some of her neighbors to the restaurant. “It will be fun.”