Recommendation to receive a report and approve the recommended revisions to the Downtown Dining and Entertainment District (District) outlined in Exhibit B; and Request City Attorney to draft an ordinance amending Title 5 of the Long Beach Municipal Code (LBMC), related to the District, and amending Title 21 of the LBMC related to the definition of nightclubs. (District 2)
Item 26 is a report from Development Services and Financial Management. Recommendation to approve the recommended revisions to the Downtown Dining and Entertainment District. And request city attorney to drive an ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code related to the downtown dining and Entertainment District. And the definition of nightclubs district to. Mayor councilmembers. I'm going to turn this over to our development services director, Amy Bodak, and also Rachel Tanner. Mr. Mayor. Members of the City Council. I'm going to ask Rachael Tanner to start. With an overview of the process and the staff report on the policy recommendations. And then Rachel and I are available to answer specific questions you might have. So with that, I'm going to start with Rachel. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor. And members of the city council. As you may know, the downtown dining and Entertainment District is an area in downtown bounded by Third Street and Ocean Boulevard to the north and south and Pacific and Long Beach boulevards on the east and west. It also includes the Pike and Shoreline Village. The council piloted the district in 2005. And then established it on a permanent basis in 2008. By doing so, they instituted consistent operating conditions for businesses with entertainment permits. In August of 2013, the City Council initiated a one year. Moratorium against the issuance. Of entertainment permits in the district for businesses with a Type 48 ABC license. The city's council directed the city manager to use that pause to evaluate the entertainment permit policies and to engage downtown stakeholders in this evaluation. As part of that, a task force was formed. Several the members are here this evening and participated in the evaluation. Earlier this year, the City. Council extended the moratorium for six months. To allow that stakeholder task force to conduct public outreach and engagement. The engagement included two public forums in August and October, two meetings with the LBA executive committee and submission of comments via email from the public. On November 12th, the task force in city staff met and reached a consensus on the recommendations that we're presenting tonight. The recommendations are meant to encourage residential development, as well as dining and entertainment. They safeguard both the quality of life for residents, while also providing clarity and predictability for business owners. Recommendations cover four broad areas entertainment permit processing, standard conditions of operation enforcement and items for future consideration. Regards to permitting, we recommend a process that proactively addresses quality of life issues such as loud music. To do so, we recommend following the downtown plan, which currently requires nightclubs to obtain a conditional use permit and an entertainment permit. However, as of today, there is no definition of nightclub in the municipal code. We believe nightclubs should be clearly defined in the code, and we recommend defining it as an establishment that has a Type 48 ABC license and an entertainment permit for music and dancing. Secondly, we recommend creating an enhanced entertainment permit that would be applicable to the district. To take this permit, applicant must was conduct a sound attenuation study to prove the sound emanating from their establishment and doesn't violate the city's sound ordinance. Or applicants can apply for a waiver from this requirement by one either indicating or demonstrating that they've used sound mitigation practices in the build out of their space, or illustrating that entertainment was previously permitted at the location without any incident. The requirement would apply to first time or change of owner applicant. Current entertainment permit holders today would only be subjected to this violation or this requirement if they become deer tiered due to sound violations. We also recommend modifications to the standard conditions of operations. Several of these are minor modifications designed to bring the conditions up to date with current entertainment permit practices. Among the more significant changes we recommend permitting outdoor amplified music, including rooftop entertainment in the district. Outdoor entertainment would be allowed from Sunday to Thursday from 10 p.m. to 10 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to midnight . We also recommend making the standards clear to business owners by codifying the conditions in the municipal code. Currently, the conditions are an attachment to the code and are not easily found by potential applicants. Enforcement is another piece that we examine and it's really critical to the success of the district. We recommend maintaining the hearing system while enhancing enforcement through additional outreach. Under the taring system, a. Permit who violates the conditions of operation is subjected to progressively more stringent regulations. The system has proven very effective in changing the behavior of entertainment establishments or revoking their entertainment permits when necessary. In addition, the Vice unit will establish a community liaison who can respond to complaining parties seeking to ascertain the outcome of a complaint, as well as report to the downtown community on incidents that have occurred and how the police have responded to these incidents. Finally, there are three recommendations related to future action. First, when the new conditions have been implemented for at least six months, the city staff and task force should reconvene to evaluate the program's effectiveness. Second, we believe the boundaries should expand, however, only after an engagement process that intentionally includes residents and business owners from proposed expansion areas. The process should take place after the recommended changes have been in place for at least one year. Finally, the impacts of bass sound on the quality of life in downtown came up often in our discussions. Modifications to the sound ordinance, though, are beyond the scope of this task. The city council could, however, take future action, adding standards for bass sound to the city sound ordinance. This concludes my report. And I'm available to answer any questions. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I wanted to thank the staff for their work on this. I know we've spent a lot of time on the dining and entertainment district permitting process since its inception a very long time ago. And I'd like to thank the mayor and the council as well for taking this item up earlier than originally planned . I see a few members of the task force that are here, and I'd like to thank the entire task force for their commitment and passion to improve the downtown. City staff Rachel Tanner, in particular, thank you very much for your hard work and your diligence on this item. And I wanted to express my appreciation to the downtown Long Beach Associates and community members for their interest and suggestions all along the way. These recommendations that Mr. Tanner summarized, I believe, strike a compromise between the business and residential communities. For many years, well over a decade, we have tried valiantly, and I believe we've been successful with the help of community members and businesses to identify the downtown as not only the economic heart of of the downtown, the Long Beach overall, but a neighborhood as well. And I do believe that striking this balance between the business and residential community speaks to that effort and speaks to that goal. I'd like to note that the task force was keenly interested in making sure our overarching request, particularly my overarching request to encourage good actors and discourage bad actors, was carried out. I know that that's an interest that many of us had. We've observed that when left, left without any guidance, that naturally does not emerge. And so to be able to have a structure that encourages the good acts of those and and discourages the bad acts of others, I believe is healthy for our downtown. The dining and entertainment district ordinance is a living document and it'll require updates from time to time. Hopefully we wouldn't have to put this much time into it in terms of bringing forward recommendations, but I do think this is worthwhile and all the time that you've spent for this effort is worthwhile. Our downtown's changed since the original dining and entertainment district conditions were established. I remember attending pilot meetings in 2006 and I know that we have changed significantly since that time. We have more residential units and higher expectations, certainly from our downtown stakeholder. And what I believe is that this ordinance will make our application process more predictable for new businesses. We want to have a predictable process, whether it's for businesses or residents or visitors, but particularly in this case, this will add to the predictability, more flexibility for current operators and more responsive to residents looking for enforcement of bad actors or bad choices that are made. So with this council members, I urge your support. Many of us, including Councilmember Gonzalez and council and Mr. Mayor, when he was a council member, we have worked for many years to ensure that the community is part of this process, that the business community is part of the process of this, as well as the stakeholders. And all of us have been at this for a very long time, and I believe this is an amazingly good product that we've all delivered together. With that, I urge your support. Can I get a second on that? Kim's been in motion in a second. Any public comment on the item? Scotian. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Members of the city council, Craig Cogen with the downtown Long Beach Associates. I first of all, first of all, I want to thank the vice mayor for her leadership and in engaging and introducing this process a year and a half ago. It has been a very good learning process. I think we've been able to better understand the growth of our downtown, balancing the needs of our downtown. And certainly this process has been a very healthy discussion. So again, thank you very much for that. And we're supportive of all of the issues that have been addressed in the recommendations. I think the only concern that we have and the downtown task force is it's to be commended, as well as city staff that have done who have done that have done an excellent job in addressing the ambiguities and the vagueness that exists in the existing document. And we want to clarify that the only outstanding issue that we have is really the sound attenuation study that is going to be required of new permittees. And we're still a little concerned of what that process looks like, what those conditions of sound mitigation may be, and what really what those proposed cost would be . And those proposed costs vary from a depends on who you consult with some really. I would like to a little bit more certainty if we're talking about clarity and certainty. I would like to remove some of the uncertainties that may be surrounding that part of the process and get more clarity on that. Other than that, we're very supportive of this process. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, mayor and city council. My name is Eric Carr live at 133, the promenade, which is right in the heart of the entertainment district. I am the past president of downtown residential council. And I. Have the. Privilege of being a task force member on the Entertainment District Task Force. As want to comment on how you can comment on the work of the task force with the support of the. Subject matter experts from the city staff and that to vice mayors. Lord last point. I think the. Group has come to a good compromise with businesses and. Residents to strike that happy medium that will. Support a really thriving. Mixed use environment. Downtown. And I just want. To give my humble recommendation to the council to support this in the next phase as well. Thank you. Next week replace. Hi, my name is Laura Cameron and thank you Mayor and council members. I was fortunate enough to serve on the task force. Thanks, Vice Mayor. Low and fall. And it's been it's been a long road, but it's been a great road to kind of bridge the needs of both the residential and business communities to come up with these recommendations to really develop a kind of fruitful entertainment district. I think what was key to what Rachel and Vice Mayor Lowenthal pointing out is that the recommendations really create that predictable environment that really shifts us from a reactive environment to a proactive environment. So with that said, I really hope that you guys take our recommendations and move them forward. Thank you. Speaker, please. Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council, I'm Joe Garnham. I too am a member of the task force. I would like to know why the city manager thought I had knowledge of nightclubs, but I guess the word must have gotten out anyway. It was it was a great process. We had a lot of good discussion back and forth. The interesting thing is, I think most of us believe that now as the current time frame, we really don't have the kinds of issues that had occurred prior and time when Vice Mayor Lowenthal brought up the issue. The key was how to keep it that way. And now we've got some good actors, as she calls them. And we want to keep it that way. And we want to give credit to those businesses that have invested their time and their energy and their money in providing a really good product to create and sustain the vibrancy of downtown. So the standards are not particularly easy. It means that somebody is going to come do Long Beach needs to be serious about it and they need to put their investment in and and be a good business. It also means that the existing businesses are going to be supported by other good businesses. So we have the right combination. You know, there is one thing that we couldn't cover, and I think it deserves to be mentioned here. And that is the key to all of this in the future. Not particularly. Now, as we ramp up and see other as this ordinance takes place and new businesses come and take a look at our city. But the key in the future is going to be our ability to enforce it, our very own. And that's currently reliant on the police department and the city health department with their noise and nuisance abatement issues. I think that what we're going to have to see in the future is some means by which to recognize that perhaps neither one of those departments are really adequately established to manage this issue properly. I'm not giving any any I'm not saying anything bad about the way they are currently. But I think as we see more of these businesses come in, we're going to need to have more attention to the enforcement part. We've tried to do a lot of it by ordinance. We hope we're going to have the kinds of businesses come in. But in the end, our ability to enforce this is going to help ensure we maintain that level of quality business in our community that the businesses and the residents can live in, and genuine security and safety . And all of us have a good time. I urge your support for this. I think it's a really good start and look forward to anything we may do in the future to improve it. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker, please. Reading Mayor Council members. My name's Katrina Harding. I am also a task force member. I would just want to say that I think it's a great compromise between business and residents. The task force came up with from the recommendation and through the great dedication of Rachel Tanner. One thing that we didn't bring up tonight is that the task force one to look at, have council, examine expanding the boundaries. Right now, the boundary ends at third. And I think at this point, the downtown has already started to expand up third and on pine. So that would be something that could be looked into expanding northward at a later date and having the test having. The task force may be involved in that process. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. With that, we do have a motion on the floor which has been made for the item. Members, please, Gordon, cast your votes.