Recommendation to declare ordinance amending Ordinance No. ORD-13-0016 extending for six (6) months the temporary limitation (moratorium) on the issuance of entertainment permits and/or business licenses for businesses that operate with a Type 48 ABC License or related permit in the Downtown Dining and Entertainment District; declaring the urgency thereof; and declaring that this ordinance shall take effect immediately, read and adopted as read. (Ordinance No. ORD-14-0011) (District 2)
Item one report from City Manager Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record. Conclude the hearing. Adopt an urgency ordinance amending ordinance number 13 Dash zero zero 16 extending for six months a temporary limitation on the issuance of entertainment permits and or business licenses for business with Type 848 ABC licenses in the Downtown Dining and Entertainment District , Red and red adopted as red and laid over to the next regular meeting of the City Council for final reading, declaring the urgency thereof and declaring this ordinance shall take effect immediately. District two. If you asked. Our assistant city manager, Joe Martin. Mayor Garcia, members of the city council, Rachel Tanner with the city manager's office, has been working with a task force of downtown stakeholders and will provide a staff report. Mayor, members of the City Council. Good evening. The Downtown Dining and Entertainment. District Task District is an area bounded by Third. Street. And Ocean Boulevard on the north and south and by Pacific and Long Beach boulevards. On the east and west. It also includes the pike at Rainbow Harbor and Shoreline Village, as you can see here in the slide. The council piloted. The district in 2005 and established it on a permanent basis in 2008. The district establishes consistent hours and operating conditions for businesses requesting entertainment permits. Last August, the City Council initiated a one year moratorium against the issuance of entertainment permits in the district for businesses under a Type 48 ABC license. Type 48 licenses typically associated with a. Nightclub that his city council directed. The city manager to use the one year pause to. Conduct an evaluation of the policies governing permits in the district. Following council direction, the city manager assembled a task force of downtown stakeholders to participate in the evaluation and recommend changes. The task force includes owners and operators of entertainment venues in the district, as well as downtown residents and property owners. City staff and the task force met regularly seeking. To balance the needs of various users. In particular, the task. Force wanted to encourage both entertainment venues and residential developments to locate in. The district while minimizing any conflict between the different uses. Recommendations that will improve the. District have been developed. And the task force believes. That the recommendations must be vetted. By a larger group of downtown stakeholders before. Being presented to the City Council and codified. Therefore, the task force requests a six month extension of the moratorium to allow sufficient time to complete a public engagement process. That process includes a public forum taking place next week on the 21st of August, as well as. Opportunities to provide written comment via. Online or email. After gathering input, the task force will meet to consider how best to incorporate the feedback and will then submit the recommendations to the City Council for Approval and Referral to Planning Commission to amend Chapter 21 of the Long Beach Municipal Code. Following Planning Commission approval, the City Attorney will return to the City Council with an ordinance for adoption and as you can see by the anticipated dates in the slide. We do hope that we can complete this process quickly and hopefully expedite it so it can be shorter than the six months requested. This concludes my report and I'm available to answer any questions. Thank you. Turn this over now to Vice Mayor Lowenthal. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I was wondering if I'd like to make the motion to move the item and also seek public comment before I make some remarks. Excellent. He's been in motion in a second by Councilmember Austin. We're going to turn this over to public comment on the item. Mr. Mayor, as vice mayor, on many occasions, I have had problems getting home. Oh. My name is Ben Rockwell. I live at 475 West Fifth Street here in Long Beach. On many occasions, I've had troubles trying to get home from events such as a Long Beach Symphony or the Long Beach Symphony Pops because of the fact that our sidewalks along Pine Avenue are so cluttered with people trying to get into some of the venues, they are blocking the sidewalks completely for pedestrian traffic and especially for those of us that use wheelchairs because we are not able to get by. And some of the people literally tried to push me off the curb out into the middle of the street because of our insistence that they have to have the sidewalk strictly for waiting to get into some of the entertainment venues, some of the night clubs along Pine Avenue. I find this abhorrent that we don't have more politeness for people that need to get through on their way from a venue to their home, which is also in Long Beach and fact in the downtown. I don't use public transportation to get from the symphony home because it's too short a distance and it takes longer to use a bus than it does from my home. So I appreciate having the moratorium so that we can have a better chance to make our city better. Thank you. Thank you. Can I get. I got pretty good. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Members of the City Council. My name is Craig. Koch, and I serve as the president and CEO of the downtown Long Beach. Associates. I'd like to thank Vice Mayor Lowenthal and her chief of staff, Brock Coward City Long Beach Project Specialist Rachel Tanner, who recently assumed the responsibility as lead staff liaison for this project and the members of the Downtown Dining and Entertainment District Task Force, especially Miss Laura Cat Ivana, who also serves as a residential representative from Council District one on the DARPA Board of Directors for their contribution to this project based on the approaching deadline of the original 12 month moratorium, which I believe is today, and despite the initiative's delayed start and a limited options that are at this point that we have at this point, the DVA supports the recommended action presented this evening . We look forward to working with Ms. Tanner and appropriate city staff, the task force members and the Downtown Staker. Stakeholders to. Expeditiously resolve any outstanding matters. That may exist before precede proceeding through the. Various public engagement and approval processes necessary to codify the proposed new. Ordinance. I'm hoping that we can get this done in a matter of 90 days. Perhaps 120, rather than a six months. I appreciate. Your support, and I thank again those volunteers. For their time to create a better downtown. And we look forward to working with everyone to get this. Get the business. Back on track. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, and city council members. My name is Eric Carr and I'm a resident at 133, the Promenade, which is right in the heart of the entertainment district. And I also had the privilege of being on the Entertainment District Task Force, and I just wanted to come in front of city council to let you know that since our first meeting, we have made considerable progress in this endeavor of coming to a resolution. This both beneficial for the business community and the residential community here in the downtown area. And at this point in time, we just feel that we really need to have some time to do the due diligence of getting that public feedback from both the residents and the business community before we move forward. We present to the City Council, so we just want to support the vice mayor, support a motion to extend this ordinance. Thank you. Thank you, Casey. No other public speakers on the item. Oh, you are your public speaker on this item. Yes. Oh, I didn't it. Please come. Forward. I'm sorry. I'm sitting down. This is about the entertainment. What's it called exactly? Please identify yourself for the record. Sure. Peter Rosenwald, my address is on file. The item is on an extension of. Of a moratorium for the dining and entertainment district. Yes. Concerning the dining and entertainment district, I have been taking note of the activities at 309 Pine Avenue. It's it's the city of Long Beach building, but it says Small Business Development Center and Center for International Trade. About three or four weeks ago, there was some stationery announcing some meetings of this particular organization. Different nights in June, I believe June and July. There was no phone number on the on this particular, the stationery, city stationery. The building appears to be deserted. I have reported this twice to the Long Beach City College, Long Beach Community. College District Board of Trustees. Stating that it's a disgrace to have a building such as this in a business district which is depressed as it is with so many empty storefronts. And I asked that at least the phone number and contact information for the Small Business Development Center and the Center for International Trade be posted on the building at the last community sorry, a community college district meeting. MZ The head of the the department, Lou Ann Bynum, came up to me after the meeting and she stated that it's not their building, but they do have meetings there. I don't understand how the city of Long Beach can have a building and right next to it, up until maybe ten days ago, there was a boarded up storefront at 311 Pine Avenue. It's now for lease. I don't understand how the city of Long Beach is trying to develop its business and entertainment success by having this poor. Representative of the business. Of business. Business development sitting right there and I have not been able to get any changes. Ms.. Bynum told me that she was going to take a look at it, but I had announced this also at a previous meeting of the board. Thank you. I see that you've just finish up the sentence approximately five weeks ago. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. I hope you can do something about it. Thank you. See you. Thank you. Time is up. Thank you. Okay. No more public comment on the item. There is the city attorney. Give a comment. Mayor Garcia, members of the city council. This action will require two separate votes. The first vote is on the urgency of the matter so that the audience can take effect immediately starting tomorrow, so that the moratorium will remain in effect. And the second vote is on the extension itself. Great. So we'll take the first vote. There's been a motion. Mr. Mayor. Garcia, I just wanted to make sure. I wanted to see how many of the task force members were in the audience. I know. I recognize one and two. There we go. Okay. I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you both, as well as the other task force members for your service so far and for attending tonight's meeting. It's been quite a commitment that all of you have put into this effort, and I know you are invested in it, and I know you're very busy just professionally and personally, but you've also been very busy over these last several months with this particular task. I appreciate everyone's comments that have come through the task force, the deliberation that's taken place, and then the speakers that came forward today to provide some comment. And it is important that we take this time for the task force to reach out to the different stakeholders and receive feedback and make changes to their recommendation. I think it's really very encouraging about that process and the deliberative process that you've taken is that you recognize that some additional time is needed. So for that, I thank you and for the honesty that goes into that in recognizing that something this important does take time. And while we initially thought we could take care of it in a certain time period, we realized that we couldn't just by going through it. So I appreciate you for that. And for those that are not here participating in this council meeting and that have served on the task force, as well as participated as members of the stakeholder community to support the task force and their deliberation, I very much appreciated. So with that, I'd like to make the first motion. I think we've already made that motion right there. We have the motion on the floor. And so with that and will be a second motion after the first vote. So the first motion that's on the floor has been made. Members, please go and cast your votes. Motion carries eight zero. Okay. And then you take a second vote. Vice Mayor want to make that motion? I'd like to go ahead and make that motion. The second piece of it. I'm sorry, would you remind me? Second piece is to actually adopt the ordinance? Absolutely. So I'd make the motion to adopt the ordinance. Okay. There's been a second by Councilman Austin, and we had public comment for both, Mr. Attorney. So I think that that worked out fine. Good. And with that, please, members. Gordon, cast your votes. Motion carries eight zero. Okay. Thank you. Moving on now to budget item I'm sorry, hearing item number three, which is a continuation of our budget hearing. So if we want to, Madam Clerk, read that.