Board OKs Dimples move

Mark R. Madler

Dimples, a karaoke hotspot for more than 20 years, will have a new

home by June now that its owner and the city have agreed on a list of

conditions to be met before the move.

Dimples owner Sal Ferraro will move his club to 3000 W. Olive Ave.

-- once home to Chadney’s restaurant and jazz club -- by June 1, he

said. The karaoke bar will be decorated to look like a museum of

television, movie and record industries.

“It’s going to be a challenge,” Ferraro said. “A new business

owner would have a tough time, but I already have the clientele. I

plan to close one day and reopen the next. I won’t have any loss [in

business].”

Setting the move in motion was the Planning Board’s 4-1 approval

of Ferraro’s conditional-use permit Monday night. Board member Greg

Jackson voted against the permit.

When presented earlier this month with the city’s 50 proposed

conditions for the Chadney’s property, Ferraro bristled at

stipulations that would have required an increase in the amount of

food service; an increase in the number of security guards; and

limiting the number of people who could wait in line to get in to 10.

Ferraro’s attorney, Robert Bowne and city staff members were able

to pare down the list of conditions.

Under the conditions approved by the board, Ferraro will have five

years to reach 35% food sales, rather than the 50% food sales within

27 months originally called for; he needs only one licensed security

guard rather than three; and he is allowed to have a line of up to 25

people outside.

Ferraro is being forced to move because a 500,000-square-foot,

mixed-use condominium and retail project is slated to be built on the

site of his present club in the 3400 block of Olive Avenue. He has

been a business owner in Burbank since the early 1960s and opened Dimples in 1982, billing it as the first karaoke club in the country.

Chadney’s, a longtime popular hangout for clientele from nearby

NBC and Warner Bros. studios, closed in 1998. Ferraro will sign a

20-year lease on the building, Ferraro said.

The board’s decision came after a lengthy hearing during which

about 18 people spoke in favor of granting the permit, Planning Board

Chairwoman Margaret Taylor said.

Those speaking in support of the permit included Dimples customers

and old friends, some of whom came as far away as Pasadena and

Woodland Hills, Ferraro said.

“I think the consensus was the [Chadney’s] location was a more

appropriate site,” Taylor said. “The business and the targeted

location are both landmarks, and we wanted to try to preserve the

business if possible.”

* MARK MADLER covers City Hall and the courts. He may be reached

at (818) 637-3242 or by e-mail at mark.madler@latimes.com.