Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing, and consider the appeal from the applicant, Steve Rawlings representing Grocery Outlet (APL21-007); and Uphold the Planning Commission’s decision to approve a Conditional Use Permit (CUP21-004) with conditions of approval, to allow the off-site sale of beer, wine and distilled spirits (Type 21 License) in conjunction with a 6,000-square-foot expansion of the existing grocery store located at 1340 East 7th Street in the Community Auto-Oriented Commercial (CCA) Zoning District. (District 2)
Unanimously, actually. Thank you. Thank you for that for the consent calendar. Next up is we have a first hearing, which I am hearing 31. Report from Development Services recommendation to receive supporting documentation under the record, conclude the public hearing and consider the appeal from the applicant. Steve Rawlings, representing grocery outlet and uphold the Planning Commission's decision to approve a conditional use permit with conditions of approval to allow the off site sale of beer, wine and distilled spirits at 1340 East Seventh Street District two. This item does require an oath. If any, who are going to be speaking on this item can please. Take the oath. Do you and each of you solemnly state that the testimony you may give in the cause now and pending before this body shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth , so help you God. Thank you. I'm going to begin the hearing with the staff report. I'd like to introduce Patricia Defender for our planning manager who will make this a staff presentation. Thank you so much. Good evening, mayor. Vice Mayor, council members. This item before you is an appeal by the applicant of specific conditions of approval imposed on a conditional use permit for the sale of alcohol at a grocery outlet grocery store . Council is being requested to uphold the Planning Commission decision on this matter on September 16th of this year. The Planning Commission conditionally approved a conditional use permit to allow the off site sale of beer, wine and distilled spirits in conjunction with a 6000 square foot expansion of an existing approximately 14,000 square foot grocery store. The grocery store in question is located at 13/47 Street on the south side of Seventh Street between Almond and Nebraska Avenues in the central area of the city. The grocery store is a tenant in the existing shopping center and will comprise that will comprise just over 20,000 square feet with the expansion. The project site is predominately surrounded by residential uses, but properties in the vicinity have a variety of zoning designations, including commercial mixed use and residential zoning, as shown on the map. On this slide, the grocery store currently has a conditional use permit to allow the offsite sale of beer and wine, which was approved by the Planning Commission in 2008. The subject conditional use permit is required because of the expansion of the liquor license to include the offsite sale of distilled spirits and also due to the expanded footprint of the grocery store and those operations. The Planning Commission based its approval on the fact that positive findings could be made in support of the request, particularly as it relates to limitations related to overconcentration of alcohol sales and allowing alcohol sales in high crime areas. You can see here the Planning Commission did find that the approval would not contribute to an overconcentration of alcohol licenses in the area at this location, as this location already has an alcohol license and that the site is not located in a high crime area and thus determined that the required conditions are met and positive findings could be found. The subject of appeal was filed by the applicant, who has concerns specifically related to two conditions conditions number 14 and 20. The applicant requests that condition number 20, requiring an onsite security guard between the hours of 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. daily be eliminated and additionally request a modification to condition number 14 to allow the sale of beer or malt beverages and 22 ounce containers, which is a common container size. This approval already does allow the sale of craft beers in that container size. As previously stated, council is requested to uphold the Planning Commission decision. However, if council wishes to consider alternatives, there are some alternative modification or modifications to the conditions that could be considered. The condition number 20 and option of the Council is to update the condition to allow the applicant to be relieved of the requirement after a 12 month period with a zoning administrator review for condition number 14, that condition could be modified to grant an exception in container size for microbrews and specialty malts, so sold under certain designations that are listed here on the slide and. And that concludes the staff presentation. The appellant is here and will speak more to the appeal points and I am available to answer any questions you might have. Do we have the we have comments now from the appellant. I don't know where members of the council. Before we before we begin, I just want to make sure. But reasonable time is 5 minutes enough for you? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much for that. Good evening. My name is Steve Rawlings. I'm a business consultant to grocery outlet. Joining me this evening is Pat Barber, who is the vice president of real estate for grocery outlets, as well as Dave O'Connell, who is the property manager for the shopping center that this site is located in. First of all, we greatly appreciate the Planning Commission for approving us to move forward with a 6000 square foot expansion, as well as be able to add some distilled spirits. The only reason we're here is we were just hoping for some consideration on a little bit of modification on the particular conditions of approval. One was as as Patricia, so well articulated. Just just don't allow us to be able to sell craft beer in in kind of the 22 and 24 ounce containers. And what was presented to you as draft modification language is is acceptable to us, and that would allow us to accomplish what we're trying to do there. The second was was the security guard. There was a time that was placed between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m., which we didn't we didn't quite understand where that was coming from. But that was ultimately the condition that was adopted. Subsequent to that, we hear Patterson, who is the store operator, a Long Beach resident. We met with her as well as Lieutenant Gonzales out at the site. And Barbara, myself, to kind of talk about, you know, security issues and what we could do to, you know, make sure that we're helping out with the situation. He informed everybody that she already employs a person whose sole job is, you know, security and or loss prevention from the hours of 4 p.m. to closing Monday, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. She's been on the property now for about four years. She's the hardest working person you'll ever meet. She's at that store 60, 70 hours each and every week. She understands what it takes to run a clean and safe operation. And she is determined that that those are the best hours. So, you know, our request was, you know, hey, if we could be relieved of that condition because we're already proactively trying to take care of any issues out there, and we haven't been a great source of issues with our operations. But alternatively, if the Council would like to see a specific condition in there, we would just ask that it be aligned a little bit more with what we're already doing, because I think that that has proven to be effective and that, you know, that security plan be open for review either by the zoning administrator. I think I proposed the Long Beach Police Department and it doesn't make a difference to us either way. So in essence, that is the request. Grocery outlet already operates three stores in Long Beach. They did sign a lease for a to open another store on Long Beach Boulevard and Willow. So we're hoping to get that open relatively soon. They have been embraced by the neighborhoods that they they serve. They're very happy that they've been making investments in your community and are looking forward to possibly continuing to make more investments there. So thank you for your time and consideration. I think Pat just had one or two other quick comments. Yeah. Thank you. We still have about a minute and a half. So for. Little. Share here, Pat. Good evening. My name is Pat Barber. I'm vice president of real estate for Grocery Outlet. I've been working on supermarket real estate for 43 years. I've seen thousands of shopping centers and grocery stores. It is exceedingly rare. In my observance, it is true for a city to require that a security person be stationed at certain hours in a store. This existing store, which has been operated by IKEA for four years plus without getting into details about how a grocery outlet does business has not had a problem. She's there all the time. She sees what the issues are. She deals with them. We have had no complaints filed by any of the people that received the notice of this meeting. I just say we really don't think that it's at all necessary for you to make a specific requirement with regard to a security person for the store, given that the operator of this store herself, who's black and who's a woman and who's very involved in the community and has received awards within the community for her involvement with the community should be overruled by you folks. You know a lot of things, but she knows a lot about operating this store. I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have. With regards to grocery outlet, it's a public company. 75 years old, 414 stores growing are going to be doing another new store shortly in the city. We love this store. It's growing nicely. We need the extra space. We're not including any additional space for the sale of alcoholic beverages. Thank you. Very much. And I believe that concludes the the appellant's time. I believe there is a additional appellant and then the staff. Any additional comment or response? No additional comments. Thank you. Is it public? Is there any public comment know for this? There is no public comment for this item. You think? Yeah, I think you have them queued up for public comment prior to the hearing start. Not prior to the start of the item. Okay. Mr. Graham, please. Please grab a seat. Thank you. Just just to be clear. Madam Clerk, how does public comment work for hearings? And are items. You need to come in and get a speaker card prior to the beginning of the item being read once the item is read. We closed the speakers list. So please, if you'd like to speak on an item, you can come over and get a speaker card prior to the item being read. And I believe that's how it's been been done. That is correct. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I have to follow the rules that are in place for the hearing, for and for the council. So there's a motion and there's no public comment about Councilman Allen. So I might. My job is to follow the rules established by the City Council on hearings. So unless I get direction differently from the city attorney because it's a legal procedure, I have to follow exactly the rules that are set by the body and the council. So unless I'm told differently by the attorney, that's the rules I have to follow. So let me. Sir. Sir, I need to. Councilman Allen. All right. First of all, I want to say thank you to city staff director R.C. and Development Services. Detective Gonzalez, Avon Police Department, for your frequent communication with my office. I also enjoyed seeing Payton, Steve and the folks here from a grocery outlet. I feel that with regards to city staff that you engage both the community and the applicant to work and find solutions for for all the parties. And I know that it can be really hard some time sometimes to balance all the issues on on different sites. That being said, the Planning Commission unanimously voted on these conditions, and I have carefully reviewed the circumstances and staff's updated recommendations. So the two items of the appeal are separate. I do support the modification to condition 14, allowing the sale of a 22 ounce to 24 ounce beer and malt beverages. I think these are common sizes these days for local and small breweries and they reduce the bottling cost. Now, with regard to Condition 20, the security guard condition, if we were able to update the condition to allow the applicant to be relieved of the requirement for the onsite security guard by allowing the zoning administrator action after a 12 month period of good operations can only shorten the minimal period of good operations before possibly relieving the operator of this security guard requirement. Yes, we can reduce. That to six months. That's the pleasure of the council. Okay. I also I received the supplemental letter sent in by grocery outlet regarding that condition, and I've seen the public comments that were also submitted to the Planning Commission as well. And I believe the city staff has created a good balance. So I like to make the like to move the following. I like to approve the amendment to condition 14 as outlined by the staff, and also update condition 20 to allow the applicant to be relieved of the requirement for the onsite security guard, by the way, of zoning administrator action after a six month period of good operations . Thank you is the second by Councilman Desmond Austin. Any comments? Any comments by the city council? Any additional comment, Mr. City Attorney. Okay, there's a motion and a second. Please go to cast your votes. Sir. We need to go. Please. Let's not be disruptive to the hearing. Motion is carried. Mix item is for transfers items 33 and you business 52 to 58.