Business diversity sought

Formula-based businesses are discouraged in downtown Laguna Beach and the City Council wants to know if the policy should be expanded throughout the city.

The council voted unanimously Tuesday to appoint a subcommittee to investigate the possible expansion of the policy to zones beyond the business district boundaries of Legion Street to the south and Lower Cliff Drive to the north, covered in the Downtown Specific Plan.

“Recently a small, independent deli on Coast Highway [outside the plan area] was almost replaced by a national chain of sandwich shops and I have received numerous phone calls and e-mails protesting this standardization of our community,” said Mayor Toni Iseman, who proposed the expansion study.

Councilwomen Elizabeth Schneider and Cheryl Kinsman, both of whom served on the Planning Commission, were appointed to the subcommittee. Planning commissioners Norm Grossman and Bob Chapman were appointed Wednesday to serve on the committee.

The Laguna Beach Chamber of Commerce opposed expansion of the specific plan position on formula-based businesses.

“Although unfortunate that any ‘mom and pop’ style business should have to close its doors due to higher rents, it is not the role of government to step in and micro-manage all business transactions,’” chamber spokesman Pat Barry said.

“If the city starts to restrict formula-based businesses throughout Laguna, we have many businesses that would be unable to open today. Hobies, Wild Oats, Quicksilver, Sun Dried Tomato, Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, all have multiple locations. Are we saying that these businesses are not the kind of businesses we want in Laguna?”

Those businesses are all in the Downtown Specific Plan area.

The specific plan does not ban chains or formula-based businesses, but it encourages diversity.

“I think it is permissible to expand [it] beyond downtown, but the Downtown Specific Plan talks about discouraging, not banning,” City Attorney Philip Kohn said.

Barry said the specific plan was developed to preserve the changing character of the downtown and its eclectic mix if architectural styles, small scale buildings, pedestrian orientation, and rich variety of shops and services.

“What is being asked for tonight smacks of city intervention where it has no place to be,” Barry said.

“Does the city want to develop a plan that fits every part of town?”

The city needs to butt out and let entrepreneurs take their chances, according to Barry.

Chamber President-elect Jeff Redeker said residents should have the right to choose to eat at Taco Bell or not.

“The business community is wholeheartedly against expanding the restriction,” Redeker said.

Iseman took exception to the chamber’s position, which she considered short-sighted.

“If someone gets off a plane in Hawaii and sees the same shops they have at home, they will head straight for the beach,” Iseman said.

Iseman expressed amazement that the 55 unhappy people who contacted her about the near replacement of an independent shop by a major national chain did not attend the meeting.

“I am not for franchised food establishments like McDonald’s that you have managed to fight off,” resident Dennis Myers said. “But I worry about discouraging formula-based businesses because there are some good ones in there. Be careful what you wish for.”