City Leaders Meet With Tavern Owners

Update: Added quotations from Walnut Creek Hospitality Group's letter.

There was a meeting of downtown bar and restaurant owners with city officials Thursday at City Hall talking about the city's impetus to draft a "nuisance" ordinance to regulate bars.

The meeting — described as "cordial" by City Attorney Bryan Wenter — came a day after sent the city a letter raising the prospect of a lawsuit if a nuisance ordinance threatens businesses' rights. The letter came from the hospitality group's lawyer, Michael F. Brown of San Ramon.

"Originally the meeting was scheduled to introduce us to the new ordinance but they are delaying it so the meeting was more of a discussion," said Patsy Wilkinson, owner of and a member of the Walnut Creek Hospitality Group, writing in an email.

The city is working toward having a nuisance ordinance before the Planning Commission on March 29 and the City Council on April 17, Wenter said.

Wenter said he felt some of the owners were reassured as city officials stressed that the ordinance will not roll back anyone's hours of alcohol service. Rather, it sets up an enforcement mechanism to give the city tools to use if a business repeatedly violates nuisance abatement standards, Wenter said.

The prospect of loss of hours was raised on Feb. 8 when the City Council, citing a long list of police service calls to the bar and its environs around closing time, , including moving the cutoff of alcohol sales from 12:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m.

The law in development will be a nuisance ordinance regulating public safety and health, whereas the current system of granting bars and restaurants conditional use permits is based on land use, Wenter said. The new law is intended to put all restaurants and bars on a level playing field. Now, establishments from 2003 and after are regulated based on a city conditional use permit. Establishments from before 2003 are "grandfathered in" and regulated via a different set of rules from the state's Alcohol Beverage Control system.

As to the prospect of a lawsuit, Wenter said, "We are on strong legal grounds to have the council adopt a set of nuisance abatement regulations."

He said the city is looking at language in similar nuisance laws in Rohnert Park, Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz.

In the letter, the hospital group expresses concern that any ordinance might be "arbitrary, discriminatory, and capricious. It would deprive legitimate business owners in Walnut Creek of their right to make a living. It would in effect be a regulatory 'taking' of their businesses. In some cases, it would put the businesses out of business. Some of the businesses would additionally be unfairly deprived of their already permitted grandfather status."

The group goes on to say it would like to work with the city to resolve issues, and that self-regulation by a particular establishment is preferrable to "unfairly targeting the group ... If, however, The City chooses not to engage with the WCHG in amicable discussions to resolve matters, and should The City proceed with an ordinance such that as described above, the WCHG is prepared to address such an ordinance in the courts both on a constitutional basis and in a civil lawsuit seeking monetary damages, which will be substantial."