Los Gatos Weekly-Times

O'Shea's takes aim at town ordinance prohibiting pubs in neighborhoods

Victory for the owners could bring reprieve for others

Hearing set for Sept.15

By Clarence Cromwell

As the owners of O'Shea's Pub and Grill try to fight the town's closure of the establishment, the clock ticks for two other popular bars in neighborhood commercial areas.

Goguen's Last Call, located at 408 N. Santa Cruz Ave., and Friends, at 15043 Los Gatos Blvd., both have less than a dozen years to relocate, to become restaurants or to shut down, town officials have warned them. The bars are legal until the deadline.

Owners of O'Shea's, now fighting to keep their doors open, say they'll fight to defeat the law that prohibits neighborhood pubs, if the Town Council agrees with Planning Commissioners on closing O'Shea's. Council members consider the matter Sept. 15.

The town decided long ago not to allow stand-alone bars in neighborhood commercial areas.

"That's the policy," Planning Director Lee Bowman said. "Bars are okay downtown. In neighborhoods, they're not."

The Last Call was part of the Down-town Business District until the town council changed its zoning in 1982, under the Downtown Specific Plan. Now the block where the Last Call stands is considered neighborhood commercial--and bars aren't allowed. The Last Call's 20-year "amortization period" gives proprietors until 2002 to stop operating as a bar. The Last Call's owner was ill and not available for comment last week, a bar manager said.

Chris Langley, owner of Friends, said he won't fight the law.

Friends was a stand-alone bar when Los Gatos annexed a portion of Los Gatos Boulevard, including the bar, into the town in 1991. When it annexed the property, the town declared it a neighborhood commercial zone and gave the bar notice.

Langley, who purchased Friends and the property on which it is situated last September, said he'll probably turn the place into a restaurant, unless he manages to develop the land first.

Langley already put a new façade on the building and remodeled it into a sports bar inside, he said. He'd like to add a kitchen and a deck for outdoor dining and smoking.

"I'd rather work with them than try to go against them," Langley said of town officials.

The policy against neighborhood bars goes back a long way in Los Gatos.

Bowman said stand-alone bars have been restricted to downtown as long as he's been employed in Los Gatos--that means the law was probably added during a 1966 update of the zoning code, if not earlier, he said. The law restricts drinking establishments mostly to the area of N. Santa Cruz Avenue, south of Highway 9, and along W. Main Street.

Restaurants that serve alcohol, on the other hand, are permitted in all commercial areas and light industrial areas in the town, but are restricted from office, residential and manufacturing areas.

One reason bars don't fit in neighborhood commercial zones is that the zones contain mostly services necessary for running a household, like grocery stores, dry cleaners, drug stores and other services, Assistant Planner Kristine Syskowski said.

Syskowski cited the strip of N. Santa Cruz Avenue that lies between Blossom Hill Road and Highway 9 (the area where the Last Call stands) as an example of a neighborhood commercial zone.

Since restaurants are permitted in C-1 zones, both the Last Call and Friends can conform to town policies by converting to restaurants. To do that, they would have to serve alcohol only with complete meals.

O'Shea's ignored city demands that it convert to a restaurant for more than three years. The Planning Commission ordered the pub shut down July 23, but owners Stan and Ellen Schwartz appealed to the Town Council.

Stan Schwartz said he's ready to take the issue to court, if he has to, because the way he sees it, the town is trying to force a business with a liquor license to serve meals to every customer. He believes he can convince judges to strike the law.

A victory for Schwartz would be a reprieve for all three bars.

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