Brewery gets wiggle room

The Ocean Avenue Brewing Company will be able to keep on dancing — if the restaurant adheres to a new set of restrictions.

The Laguna Beach Planning Commission voted Wednesday night to continue a hearing on a conditional use permit (CUP) to the first meeting in February.

The decision came after the commission negotiated terms with owner Jonathan Thomas and designer Marshall Ininns.

Thomas was informed in November that the restaurant’s nightly dancing and live music was in violation of the establishment’s 1996 permit.

The owner started a petition to save the dancing and submitted an application for a new permit that would allow the activities.

The City Council chamber was filled with Brewing Company supporters, who held up their hands in support of the dancing.

The staff report prepared by planning staff suggested the commission not approve the application. Police Chief Mike Sellers said the Ocean Avenue area was an area of concern for the department, especially with three drinking establishments — the Brewing Company, Hennessey’s and the Marine Room tavern — so near to one another.

The commission voiced similar concerns with the way Ocean Avenue seems to attract police attention.

“When we look at things like an excessive number of police calls to the area and then we look at the CUP and see that the space is being used for a different use, it’s an area of concern,” Planning Commissioner Norm Grossman said during the meeting.

Commissioners were also concerned with the brewery operating what appears to be a nightclub at night and a restaurant during the day. The restaurant removes many of its tables and chairs after 9 p.m. to make room for revelers. A total of 50 seats are left in the nighttime hours.

“What you’re really asking for is a different business at a different time of day,” Commissioner Robert Zur Schmiede told Thomas while he was at the podium.

But they weren’t quite ready to put the kibosh on the whole operation.

“I’m just not ready to take the Draconian measure of just cutting it off,” Grossman said.

Commissioners voiced their concerns and suggested they would vote for dancing and the live music, with a few caveats.

The brewery will have time to submit a new CUP application that reflects the suggestions of the commission before they vote on it. They asked for an occupancy load of 110 customers and said the business would have to comply with all Fire Department and health department requests.

They also suggested training for the security staff, and that a manager always be working during the dancing hours. The theory is that the brewery will be able to cut down on nuisances outside the business with more internal regulation of customers.

“A management problem at 9 o’clock is better than a police problem at midnight,” Commissioner Bob Chapman said.

If approved in February, the new permit would come up for review in summer. The commission wanted a “test run” to make any necessary adjustments to the new regulations.

Thomas told the commission the restaurant never intended to go against the original CUP. It was a case of starting a business that evolved unexpectedly.

It was “naive” to not reapply for a new CUP, Thomas told the commission.

“We didn’t come prepared with a blueprint for success,” Thomas said. “Our biggest mistake is that we’ve been operating for 13 years without amending our CUP.”

With the commission allowing the Ocean Avenue Brewing Company a little wiggle room, Thomas said he is more than willing to follow through on whatever it asks.

“I’m going to get a chance to prove myself now; it would be stupid for us to not be compliant,” he said.