Huntington Beach officials will allow a bikini bar near a local elementary school to sell hard liquor as police report more than six dozen calls for service in the past decade related to the business – including two reports of rape.
Surf City’s debate over the liquor license also showed another fracture in the city council, pitting elected officials who ran on the same slate against each other.
The city council approval comes despite residents, school board leaders and two council members raising concerns about the area around the bar being prone to crimes, attracting a rowdy crowd and the school area already being surrounded by alcohol-selling businesses.
City leaders argued that permitting the business to sell distilled spirits will come with a host of conditions that weren’t in place before regarding lighting, signage, security, surveillance and a few rules about serving alcoholic beverages that will address concerns.
Ocean View School Board President Gina Clayton-Tarvin said Westmont Elementary School is already located close to liquor stores and bars, adding that officials were downplaying the potential dangers the move could cause.
“What is equally troubling is that we are being asked to believe that increasing alcohol service at this location already associated with police activity, public disturbances, and neighborhood complaints will somehow improve the conditions in the area. Come on, that defies common sense,” Clayton-Tarvin said at Tuesday’s city council meeting.
“This is not responsible planning.”
Peter Blied, a consultant for the bar, said there are bars up and down Beach Boulevard and officials can’t make decisions based on fear.
“That tells us this is part of our society, this is part of our fabric, this is part of our existence as human beings,” he said.
“I understand we want to protect our children but we have to be realistic about what we’re protecting them from. There’s a real world out there. There are bars. There are people that you need to pay attention to. There’s people you need to stay away from. They’re all around us.”
On election night Tuesday, city council members voted 4-2 to expand a liquor license for the Distractions Lounge and to reject an appeal brought forth by one of their colleagues to try and reverse the planning commission’s decision to allow the bar to sell hard liquor.
Mayor Casey McKeon said it is not the council’s job to impose their morality on the city and listed a host of the conditions that will be in place aimed at keeping the community safe.
“We live in a free market capitalist society based on ordination of laws and a business environment that sets out those guidelines and laws to encourage the free market to come here,” McKeon said.
“When you keep moving the goal post and having the government pick winners and losers, you dissuade the private sector from coming into our city to invest.”
Councilman Chad Williams, who brought forth the appeal, said allowing Distractions to serve hard liquor would be detrimental to students at nearby Westmont Elementary and surrounding neighbors who have complained about some of the bar patrons’ rowdy behavior.
“What we’re supposed to contemplate in our discretion is the effect that it will have on the surrounding community,” Williams said.
“We heard from a gentleman that literally lives about 60 feet away and I wrote down – he’s talking about people kicking in his back wall. There’s a drunk guy trying to kick in a door at his neighbor’s house.”
Williams and Councilman Andrew Gruel were the dissenting votes. Councilwoman Gracey Van Der Mark, who is running for state assembly, was absent from the vote.
Distractions: Calls For Service
A report from the police department listing over 70 calls for service in the past 10 years related to the bar include reports of rape, fights, disturbing the peace, misdemeanor assault, trespassing, theft, drunk driving and drunk in public.
None of the listed calls described in the report involved minors or juveniles and police officials said the level of calls were not abnormal for a bar like Distractions.
The bar was previously allowed to sell beer and wine only.
Williams questioned if calls to police would increase if hard liquor would be sold at the Bikini Bar after highlighting some of the reports on the list including a rape.
“If that’s what happens on beer and wine, what might happen on distilled spirits?” Williams said.
Councilman Don Kennedy said issues like those in the report don’t just happen at bikini bars.
“It’s unfortunate but violence happens. There’s irresponsible people and bad things happen and that’s life,” he said. “It’s terrible but that happens at any venue.”
City staff said the police department wasn’t opposed to the license expansion but suggested several conditions be tied into the liquor permit for the bar including employee training, limiting hours of operation and requiring all alcoholic beverages to be consumed inside the property.
Bikini Bar Debate Splits Council
While the Huntington Beach City Council has normally been a cohesive supermajority of Republicans, issues like the Pacific Airshow settlement and a public relations contract have shown some fractures among Orange County’s most MAGA council.
[Read: Huntington Beach Shelves Plans for Film Commission and Expanded PR
Tuesday night marked another rift forming between some council members, with Councilmen Gruel and Williams pulling away from their colleagues on the liquor license – questioning if allowing Distractions bikini bar to sell hard liquor was a positive for the community.
“Can anyone define with metrics how this is good for the community? How is this better? What are the positives? When I look at this as a cost-benefit analysis, what’s the what’s the cost, and what’s the benefit?” Gruel said.
Kennedy said he doesn’t go to bars but can’t let his “moral compass” dictate how he votes on policy decisions.
“A lot of times I may vote on something or against something that may go against what my personal judgment may be, but I wasn’t elected to make personal decisions,” Kennedy said. “I have to make decisions that I think are valid and based on lawful exercising of rights.”
Kennedy added if the bar owner doesn’t abide by the conditions in the permit, they will be put out of business.
Williams said the conditions don’t go far enough – pointing to one condition proposed by planning commissioners to improve the bathrooms at the bar in an attempt to prevent public urination – something he said wouldn’t stop drunk patrons from peeing outside.
“I just think the types of people that are peeing in public at distractions aren’t going, ‘Gee golly, if the bathrooms were just a little bit nicer, I think I would have used it, but instead I’m gonna go outside over here,’” he said. “These conditions are hardly conditions.”
Gruel said the bar is already violating state law because people are drinking outside and questioned how granting Distractions the permit for hard liquor would benefit the community.
“If we’re saying, ‘oh, well, by putting these conditions in place, it’s going to make it better.’ It’s already not good to begin with,” he said.
Councilman Pat Burns said he doesn’t go to the bar but “scouted it out” ahead of the meeting and called the argument expanding the license would harm kids disingenuous.
“It’d have to be a rogue kid that broke free,” he said. “The benefit is the customers. There is a customer base, whether we agree with it or not.”
“So you want to do this for the existing customers who pee on the floor and get into fights,” responded Gruel.
“That’s disingenuous too,” Burns said. “If it’s not good, people won’t go and the business will fail. Bye. I mean that’s the way capitalism is.”
Kennedy said there was no benefit to the smoke and vape shops in the city.
“I’ve never seen a rape case specifically tied back to a cigarette,” Gruel responded.
“The rape took place, if it did, at an apartment,” Kennedy said.
“Two rapes where they started drinking at the establishment. When you mix alcohol and naked ladies, that’s like oil and vinegar,” Gruel responded. “Those are just certain principles in life that don’t mix, and that’s clearly one of them.”
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org.
