By Clarence Cromwell
Namita Mehta, owner of the Los Gatos Crêperie, is an outlaw: Her Crêperie has been preparing food in a Main Street shop zoned for a retail store.
The business occupies a corner booth inside the Los Gatos Coffee Roasting Company. It's in an area of the shop also used to sell coffee beans, mugs, pots and tea paraphernalia. Which is OK with the town.
When Crêperie owner Mehta asked the town to allow her business inside the Coffee Roasting Company, she used the company's main address, 101 W. Main St., and she got permission.
Then the town found out that the Crêperie was actually at 109 W. Main. The Roasting Company occupies three storefront spaces, and unbeknownst to Mehta until recently, it has three addresses.
Mehta's crepe-assembling station happens to be at an address zoned for retail selling, and the crepes may have to go. The town enacted a ban last year on converting retail shops into restaurants.
This is just another case in the town's ongoing job of policing merchants. The merchants are bound not only to mind the 2,963-page town code, but to follow specific conditions the Town Council draws up for each particular business.
Los Gatos Christian Church's approval to expand, for example, hinges on 50 conditions, including the hours the gym will operate and the number of students allowed to attend the school there. Of course, now the town has to make sure its 50 demands are met.
CUP's are often violated unintentionally. For Mehta, it was a case of mistaken address. To the town, it's more planning department work to straighten the issue out.
"This is a constant thing," Bowman said. "It's not unusual for people to go into business one way or another and not have the proper permits." One planning department employee spends part of his time as a code enforcement officer, issuing warnings to businesses that violate conditional use permits or the town code.
Conditional use permits are required for land uses that are allowable but might not work in all locations. The town uses the conditions to make sure a specific use will fit in with neighborhoods. Churches and schools in residential neighborhoods require a CUP in most cities.
The town can issue tickets, impose fines and even revoke the use permit--shutting the business down--if owners don't cooperate. Most of the time, those measures work.
But in one case, the town got satisfaction only after explaining to a judge its requirement of a CUP for every restaurant.
O'Shea's Pub and Grill agreed to follow the conditions of approval only after it took the town of Los Gatos to court over the right to impose the conditions--and lost. That was in 1994.
The pub is still working on meeting its conditions of approval, which require it to convert the establishment from a bar back into a restaurant serving drinks only with meals. In 1995, the owners got rid of the live entertainment, paved a parking lot that used to raise clouds of dust over neighbors and started closing at 11 p.m. on weeknights, instead of 2 a.m. The restaurant plans to remodel its interior, shortening the bar and removing a dance floor, the last condition required by the town.
The Posh Bagel won Planning Commission approval to receive a CUP and convert a retail shop at 125 W. Main to a restaurant. The business was considered a retail outlet when it opened in April 1993, because no food was consumed on the premises and it had no tables.
Later, when Posh began making sandwiches-on-a-bagel and installed a tiny lunch counter and stools, it became a restaurant under the town code.
Now, Posh must apply for a CUP, because all restaurants must have one.
Planning Commissioners recommended that the shop receive a CUP so it can keep its chairs and keep making sandwiches. But the Town Council has the final word on CUPs.
Even cooperative permit-holders can be stymied by copious CUPs. Eastfield Ming Quong recently waded into hot water when groups that rented Eastfield's Loma Alta Avenue conference center invited more people than the CUP allows. Eastfield spokesman Fred Ruffin said Eastfield has tried to follow the rules all along, but sometimes too many people just show up.
Neighbors complained about the oversized events, saying they complicate parking and traffic on nearby streets. At a Nov. 13 public hearing, the Planning Commission gave EMQ six months to clean up its act.
On top of the CUP policing, Los Gatos has to make sure businesses buy a license from the finance department as well.
Administrative Analyst Dianne Rovero finds unlicensed businesses when people report them, or sometimes when she happens upon an unfamiliar moniker in the phone book. Then a business has to buy the license, which can cost anywhere from $75 to thousands of dollars, depending on the type and size of firm.
As for the Los Gatos Crêperie, Mehta's business and her $30,000 investment depend on a town policy-setting session next month.
Conversion of retail space into restaurants will be discussed when the Town Council and Planning Commission meet Feb. 22. Then the Planning Commission will decide on the Crêperie in March. The plot will get more complicated when Mehta reaches the Town Council, because her landlord, Teri Hope, is married to Councilmember Jan Hutchins.
Mehta wants the town to redefine what makes a restaurant under the town code to allow small operators like her to share retail space with other businesses. "Rather than just retail and restaurant, there's something that falls between," Mehta said.
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, January 22, 1997.
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