Rooftop Bar too Noisy for Dogs, Residents in North Beach

The PROPOSED ROOFTOP NIGHTCLUB with a projected 90-decibels of amplified night time band music blasted to more than 200 nearby area families is a deafening monstrosity that must not be allowed to exist.

BTW, 90 decibels is the decibel level of a motorcycle. Think about THAT sound, times 10, screaming through YOUR neighborhood. 

On July 17th, The Planning Commission already voted UNANIMOUSLY to decline this proposal, and now the owner is back, due to a technicality about signage, re-presenting his questionable facts to the Council. 

He showed up last night at the City Council meeting with a three-inch-think, phone-book-sized “argument” as to how his project meets all the codes and thus should be allowed. (I hope he did not do that because he could be thinking of later suing the city, by saying he met all city codes yet was still turned down.) 

Major Problems with the Rooftop Bar.

 1.  The proposed rooftop bar building at 1509 N. El Camino Real is 10-feet away from the Avenida Veterinary Hospital (50 years at that location) which shelters ill and recovering and boarded animals.  

 The Orange County SPCA has already sent the City a letter cautioning the city to precede with extreme car regarding the rooftop nightclub's excessive sound vis a vis the sensitive hearing of pets. 

If the rooftop noise is allowed, the dogs will bark till 2am, further causing nearby residents lack of sleep and frustration. Also causing Dr. Amin to lose customers and soon, lose his business. 

2. I guess the city council members did not view the video of the July 17th, earlier planning commission meeting when the many “holes” in the decibel level study were pointed out by the PC members. 

At THAT July 17th meeting, the answers given by 1509 people to the planning commission regarding the projected sound levels, were laughable.…The decibel level “test” that was conducted by a “sound engineer” was so flawed that people in the PC chambers were smirking at the “professional’s” confused explanations. 

3. The decibel test was not done at night when the greatest sound range would occur, it was done at 130 in the afternoon when conditions were much different. And it was not done with actual RESIDENTS, near and far, commenting upon what kind and intensity of sounds they HEARD.  It was all done with instruments and we all know how non-human “instrument results” can be structured. 

4. PLEASE, PLEASE go watch the video of the July 17th Planning Commission meeting where way more probing planning commissionl questions were met by semi-answers. You will learn a great deal by doing so. See the video here at http://san-clemente.org/Videos/ShowVideo.aspx?VideoID=438  

I invite CITY COUNCIL members to ALSO go and watch this enlightening Planning Commission video where many more facts have come out than they did during last night’s City Council meeting. 

(I think it should be a RULE that city council members ruling on a topic already discussed by the planning commission, MUST watch the video of that meeting before THEIR meeting!) 

Click here to go see the meeting wherein the planning commission voted UNANIMOUSLY to deny the restaurant. Go to http://san-clemente.org/Videos/ShowVideo.aspx?VideoID=438 

5. Some say, “Well, we want North Beach to be revitalized.” 

Well, yes, I do, too!  

But not at the expense of putting Dr. Nagy Amin’s 50-year-old Avenida Animal Hospital out of business. 

And not at causing the owners of the multi-use, 3-story, multi-million-dollar building across the street at 1520 N. El Camino Real (look for the fountain in front) to lose their 16 luxury condo residential rental tenants due to 90 decibels (same as a motorcycle) of blasting sound from the rooftop restaurant located directly across El Camino Real from the building.

 6. Parking is virtually non-existent for that restaurant with projected seating for more than 200 people. The Planning Commission even banned counting needed parking spots at the curb on the opposite side of the street from the rooftop bar, because of the severe danger of accidents.

 See, drunks could stagger out of the bar at 2am and head for their car at the curb across the street. Drunk and sober drivers, rounding the sharp downhill, blind curve of ECR approaching the restaurant, could then smack into the drunks and kill them or harm them. And we MUST protect our drunks. 

On Monday, Sept. 30, a lady lost control of her car heading down that sharp downhill, blind curve of ECR, and smashed into a tall city concrete street light pole standing 70 feet tall in front of the Animal Hospital, 60 feet from the 1509 property.  The concrete pole later fell down with a crash over three lanes of ECR...luckily no cars were passing by then, and no drunks were staggering about. 

7. Patrons sitting in the open, sidewalk level patio in front of the nightclub at 1509 may sit out there till 2 am, talking, clinking glasses and smoking, yelling and cheering there when celebrating a favorite team’s win, and emitting cigar smoke over the entire neighborhood, especially towards the open patio doors of the 16 luxury condo families directly across the street at 1520. 

8. There is basically not sufficient parking for the 211 or more seats of the restaurant, even with generous waivers offered by the city.  

The owner of 1609 had earlier told the city that he’d likely have a parking agreement for shared parking behind the Elks Club next door. But an Elks Club official (more than 90-years-old) made a point of laboriously coming to the meeting last night and telling the council that THERE IS NO AGREEMENT! and he said that there likely won’t be because of all the liability and of the logistical nightmare that sharing that parking lot would impose. 

The 1509 owner last night showed charts implying that parking spaces could be counted for him in the El Molino industrial district. However, that is a long, unsafe, uneven sidewalk walk to the restaurant, and it is highly unlikely that women in heels would want to park at night on that dark and deserted, kinda scary, El Molino Street and then walk up the equally dark alley, or walk the long way around to ECR, to reach the restaurant. 

His parking chart also counted the parking spots on the opposite side of ECR from his restaurant. But the city planners had already DIS-allowed counting patron parking on that side of ECR. Maybe he forgot.... 

9. There could be some serious problems, too, with ADA compliance, to allow wheelchairs and mobility carts to have access to the restaurant, even to the rooftop section. 

There is an alley next to the 1509 property and this alley belongs to the city and currently contains no ADA striping, etc., a costly project to undertake. 

10. There are many other problems with this proposal, but once you watch the video at http://san-clemente.org/Videos/ShowVideo.aspx?VideoID=438 you will learn of the most significant ones, many of which did NOT get fully discussed or even brought up at last night’s October 1, city council meeting. 

I spoke AGAINST the restaurant there last night, Oct. 1, as did many others and you can see it all by clicking below---PLEASE WATCH THE VIDEO NOW...

http://san-clemente.org/Videos/ShowVideo.aspx?VideoID=438

Thanks so much for reading this... 

Bill Koelzer