Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by amending Section 5.72.200; by adding Section 21.15.1855; and by repealing City Council Resolution Nos. RES-06-0003 and RES-14-0030, all relating to the Downtown Dining and Entertainment District, read and adopted as read.  (Citywide)
This hearing involves a recommendation from the city attorney to take three actions. First is to declare an ordinance, read the first time, and lead over to the next regular meeting of the City Council for final reading of amendments to the Municipal Code pertaining to the Downtown Entertainment and Dining District, as well as the definition of a nightclub . And then second, to rescind council resolution number six, 0003 and 14 0030 relating to the former ordinance. And then the third action is to adopt a resolution directing the Director of Development Services to submit the amendment of Title 21 to the California Coastal Commission for finding of conformance with the local coastal plan. Mr. West, your next. Yes. This is I'm going to turn this. Over to Amy Burdick, the development services director. At this time, Mr. Mayor and members of the city council, I'm going to ask Amy Weaver to give this staff report and then Rachel Turner and I can answer any questions you might have. Perfect. Good evening, Honorable Mayor and members of the City Council. Pursuant to the action of the City Council on December 2nd, 2014, amendments to the Long Beach Municipal Code Titles five and 21 have been prepared and are now submitted for your approval. Since one of the amendments is to the zoning code, they are required to be. Considered in a hearing. The proposed amendment to Title five incorporates changes to the downtown dining and entertainment district permitting process recommended by the Downtown Task Force. The regulations will now be included in the municipal code for ease of reference. Formerly, the ordinance set forth the regulations in two Council resolutions. The proposed amendment supersedes and replaces these resolutions, and it is therefore requested that those be. Rescinded in order to avoid confusion. The proposed amendment to Title 21 provides a definition of nightclub, which was previously not included in the zoning code. The Planning Commission considered and approved this amendment at its meeting on November 20th, 2014. In addition. It is requested that the attached resolution be adopted, forwarding the citywide. Amendment to the zoning regulations affecting the coastal zone to the California Coastal Commission as required by state law. If you have any questions. We are available to answer them. Thank you. Thank you. We do have a motion on the floor about Vice Mayor Lowenthal. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I wanted to thank the staff for the work that they've done on this round of the dining and entertainment district item. I don't see Mr. Harrison here, but Reggie Harrison, who is our deputy city manager, took up this issue. Miss Burdick, remind me, is it eight years? Ten years, when all the while a while. So his twins were much younger. My son was probably two, and I remember walking into the upstairs of one of the establishments where Reggie was holding the meeting. And I bring that up firstly because I want to thank you, Reggie, for the work that you did. You were quite a diplomat in that room. Those were not fun days. Those were days when people were very upset that the city was looking to regulate dining and entertainment districts in any way possible. Because I think the approach and attitude was for as long as it made money, it should be good for the city. We learned a very long time ago that just making money was not good enough for the city. It did not provide a balance that our residents deserved. And so Reggie was the arbiter of that diplomacy. And I want to thank you for that. That has been carried through. I learned a lot from how you manage those rooms and those tough crowds. And I wish there was a better way to approach these sorts of policies, because it seems not possible to make someone better off without making someone worse off. But what we have done in these ten years is we brought the public into the process. We brought the task force members. We created a task force over a year ago. We established a one year moratorium on Type 48 licenses known as the bars, and that was done in August of 2013. Our original intent was simply to update the ordinance in such a way to encourage good actors and discourage bad actors. And I think that has been accomplished. We had people that came together in a room that in other circumstances would not come to the kind of agreement that they did. And they did come to an agreement. They looked at the recommendations that staff and my office came up with. They worked very hard to vet these recommendations. And the city attorneys already mentioned the key recommendation that I think perhaps took the longest time was the definition of nightclub. How do you define a nightclub? You have residents who have their own definition of nightclub. You have businesses that have their own. And certainly the city attorney and and his team had their opinions. But we have come to a consensus and it's very important it truly is important to have created that certainty. We've operated under an ordinance that didn't provide as much certainty as it should have. And I think that's what we do today, is after this decades long process of watching the evolution of the downtown, watching the renaissance of the downtown, what we have created is certainty. And I think the residents for that, if it wasn't for residents that moved into Pine Avenue, created really a neighborhood sense. We wouldn't have this discussion or even initiated the discussion over a decade ago. And so with all that said, I'm very happy for the outcome and the recommendations I know we discussed quite a bit and discussed is putting it lightly. How to define ambient sound. I look at Rachel, she smiles kind of cautiously about that because ambient music is something that a lot of our establishments depend on, but its definition was vague at best and we have provided some certainty there. And so with all that, I'd like to thank the task force members. I know they were here last month, council members. You'll recall this item came before us last month and it was received very positively. You recognize many of the restaurant owners that participated and the restaurant and the residents that participated. And so my my gratitude to these members, the community, as well as city staff, many people applied to be on this task force. But I think at the end of the day, people were very confident at the members who did serve and felt. They were representative, representative of their interests and really the balance between business and residents. We are trying to create a three shift downtown, which is 24 hours. And in doing so, this is a critical piece to our step forward. These recommendations do strike a compromise between the business and residential communities. While most of the dining and entertainment district venues exist in the downtown shared by Councilmember Gonzalez and me, I do know that we have many of these establishments throughout the city. So for all the pain that the downtown has gone through, I'm thankful that the entire city will benefit. And as I mentioned before, this ordinance will make our application much more predictable. Actually, our city attorney mentioned it for new businesses, more flexible for current operators and more responsive to residents looking for enforcement of bad operators. So with that, Mr. Mayor, I know we have three motions I'd like to. Are we taking them up? One at a time. Mr. Mason, we do all three in one motion. Or I can do them separately. It's your pleasure, Mr. City Attorney. I'm sorry. We can take all three up at the same time, but we do need separate boats. Okay. So then would you. Make the most of all three? We could go ahead and read that, actually. Do you want to do that? Yeah. I thought we would do public comment for all three. Absolutely. Okay. Is there any public comment for the hearing? CNN by Samir Lowenthal. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'd like to go ahead and declare the following ordinance, read the first time and lead over to the next regular meeting of the City Council for a final reading amending Long Beach Municipal Code Section 5.72.200 relating to the regulation of the Downtown Entertainment and Dining District that it was a dining and entertainment district , but may be adding Long Beach Municipal Code Section 2115. .1855 relating to the definition of nightclub so moved. Okay there's a second by Councilman Richardson. And I have a procedural question real quick. Mr. Mays, because on the on the voting caste system, members are able to obviously second emotion. And they don't have to verbalize it. So on a second do I if I just say the motion that that covers it. Right. Who seconded it on per who who plugged in first. Or do I need to call on them for them to actually second it. But I think. Since I'm new to the system too, I think if you see it there, I don't think you necessarily have to call them. They've indicated that. They've said. Oh, I'll just announce it was. Yes. Okay. Okay. So I have a motion from Vice Mayor Lowenthal and a second from Councilman Richardson. Well, okay. Well, the first the first motion was actually see of mind has Richardson and then Gonzales did the second one. So in that way, you have Mr. Clarke. Yeah, I have Richardson. Correct. Yeah, it's it's Richardson. That's right. That's what it it's it says. Okay so the motions by Vice Marie Lowenthal. The second is by Councilman Richardson. Okay. Now, I think the confusion again that I am. Confused. Is that on the bottom motion. So at the top it is motion to approve recommendation. It is long thought. Richardson then below and black. It says Lowenthal Gonzalez. That's the next motion. Right? That one have been verbalized. So I may have struck that second motion too quickly. Yes. Okay. So I think we're going to build on Lowenthal Richardson, which was the first motion. So all those in favor for the first item, please cast your votes. Motion carries eight votes. Okay. And then we're going to go on to the second part. Which is the second motion which I'd like to make, is to rescind council, city council resolution numbers, resolution dash zero six, dash 0003 and resolution dash 14, dash 0030 relating to the former ordinance. And the second was by Councilwoman Gonzales. Was correct. Please cast your votes. Motion carries eight votes. Vice Mayor Lowenthal. And the third motion is to adopt the attached resolution directing the Director of Development Services to submit the amendment to Title 21 to the California Coastal Commission for a finding of conformance with the local coastal plan citywide.