Good evening everyone, I'm Cindy Silva. I have the honor this year of serving as the city's
mayor and I want to welcome you to the October 17th, 2023 regular meeting of the Walnut Creek
City Council. It is wonderful to see so many people here in the chambers, particularly on
a night when we're honoring so many of our youth, so welcome everyone. We are conducting this meeting
under the California law and the rules for public meetings. We will take public comment from members
in the audience, as well as in writing, although that will not be written into the record,
we are no longer having virtual meetings in which we will take virtual public comment.
At this point, I notice that all five council members are with us, so we have no requests
for special, to be able to participate in a meeting remotely.
So I will now ask you all to rise and join us in the Pledge of Allegiance.
of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under
God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Thank you.
Would the City Clerk please take the roll?
Councilmember Darling.
Here.
Councilmember Francois.
Here.
Councilmember Wilk.
Here.
Mayor Pro Tem Haskew.
Here.
Mayor Silva.
Here.
start of the meeting this evening, and we are going to start with an announcement and
proclamation about October and the Cyber Security Awareness Month.
So the month of October in the United States is Cyber Security Awareness Month, and it's
really a time for us all to acknowledge the importance of identifying, protecting oneself
from and responding to cybersecurity threats.
It's also an opportune time to remind ourselves that we have a shared responsibility to be
aware and take action to be cyber secure.
Tonight we're proclaiming our official support as the Walnut Creek City Council for this
year's Cyber Security Awareness Month and we want to thank our city's information technology
team and others across our community who work each day to keep our cyberspace secure.
Thank you all very much for your work.
Each year across the nation we observe Hispanic Heritage Month between September 15th and
October 15th, which gives us an opportunity to recognize and celebrate the histories,
cultures and contributions of Americans whose ancestors came from Spain, from Mexico, from
the Caribbean or from Central and South America.
This 30-day period in which we observe Hispanic Heritage Month is particularly important because
it is the anniversary of independence for a number of Latin American countries, Costa
Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, in addition to Mexico and Chile.
It is also Columbus Day, or Dia de la Raza, which is October 12th, falls within this 30-day
period.
Hispanic Heritage Month particularly is important in California and particularly notable because
Hispanics and Latinos, as we know, are the largest ethnic group in the state.
They also represent 18.5% of the United States population, which is the largest ethnic race
racial group in America. We are so proud of our Hispanic heritage in this state.
We're very honored. It's generations long from the original Spanish settlers who
walked from Mexico on behalf of the country of Spain to settle our state. And
that was ten generations ago. My husband is related to six of the
families that came with the original 125 that came from De Anza and Uni
Perocera. So it is my honor this evening as the mayor of the City of Walnut Creek
and on behalf of all of us on the City Council to hereby proclaim September
15th through October 15th, 2023 as Hispanic Heritage Month in Walnut Creek
and who encourage all in Walnut Creek to recognize the significance of Hispanic
heritage and the history in our nation as well as in our city. We were hoping
that the representative of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce was going to join us this evening.
Is he here or is he still looking for a parking place?
Well when he arrives we hope he'll say hello. So thank you all for being here and being able
to participate in this proclamation. Next on our agenda is a true celebration because we are
welcoming back from their first visit as ambassadors from Walnut Creek to both Sheo Folk
Hungary and Nacetto, Italy, on behalf of the Walnut Creek Sisters City International.
And who's going to lead us off on behalf of the Youth Ambassador Program?
You're going to have to compete with some road music.
I'll try to speak loud. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Okay. Well, thank you. Thank you for inviting us to your council meeting.
Listed are the Walnut Creek citizens who traveled as ambassadors to our
sister cities of Siafoc, Hungary and Nocetto, Italy. My name is Michelle
trainer Stefanos and I am a teacher at Foothill Middle School. On September 28th
Walnut Creek sister cities sent seven eighth graders to Siafoc, Hungary. I
traveled as a teacher chaperone with our parent chaperone Deborah Nipp. The mayor
of Siafoc asks that you accept this gift as a symbol of our friendship between
our two cities the mayor welcomes you and looks forward to many more years of
friendship and stated it is our water tower that stands central to our town
and is beacon of light to welcome visitors so I want to present this to
you that's lovely we will put it in the cabinet outside the door thank you I
I hope the mayor is well.
Yes, he's very well.
Very kind.
I won't go into it, but very kind.
I know we have such a short period of time.
Anyway, our ambassadors from Hungary
will now introduce themselves and share what school they go to
and photo depicting a special memory from their trip.
Clara Decker, Graham Lawson, and Oliver Knipp
will lead us off speaking about their overall experience
in Shia Folk.
Hello.
My name is Clara Decker from North Creek Academy.
Preparing for my trip to Hungary,
I had no idea that going to school
would be one of the most memorable takeaways.
I was struck by how different their school day was from mine.
A big difference between the Hungarian school I visited
and my school, where the classes were shorter,
about 30 to 45 minutes in length.
Second, in between each class was a 10 to 20 minute break.
I believe this is one of the factors
that led to almost no talking nor outbursts in the classes
since students had plenty of time
to talk in between the classes.
Finally, the cafeteria.
The food was well made and seemed very fresh.
I do not know if it was pre-packaged or not,
but it seemed very unlikely that it was.
I didn't see anyone with a lunch from home.
Everyone was eating the deliciously prepared
school hot lunch, which included a strawberry soup,
layered potatoes, and a rice dish with chicken.
The school was very welcoming to our arrival,
and I would like to say thank you
to everyone working there if I could.
The school was great.
Lastly, I was asked to select a picture for my trip,
and I chose a picture from Tehane Abi
because I found it fascinating
that the church had survived almost 1,000 years.
We do not see architecture this old in California.
We were also able to watch a short film
explaining lots of rich history about this church,
including the fact that Hungary's King Andrew
was buried there in 1060.
Thank you for your time.
Hello, my name is Graham Lawson.
I go to Tice Creek School.
And I went to Hungary, as you know.
My overall experience was a great experience, I would say.
Such in fact that when we got on the plane,
I was very, well, I would say homesick,
but it wasn't my home, but I wish it was.
I have learned a lot about the culture in Hungary,
I would say, like how the parents really do trust
their children with a lot of things
that I feel like here in America
we would not trust them with.
Specifically, I'm pretty sure it was Wednesday night,
we went, me and my host, we went to a small restaurant
on the side of the road and we ate dinner
without the parents at all, which is very surprising to me
because I feel like both my parents would have been there
and all of my family with me.
But nope, they just dropped us off and we had some dinner.
And also the fact that they can really just go up to anybody
and say hello and just chat about like the weather
or about sports or something,
and they could just do it to anybody.
Like I could walk up to that man right there
and just say, like in Hungary,
they could walk up to that man right there
and just say, hi, my name is Musso and so,
and I like the weather today.
And I found that very interesting.
And thank you for your time.
Oh, sorry, I forgot my image.
My image is of a church in Budapest.
This picture, I feel, represents how people coming together
can create really beautiful things, such as, well,
the church, and people came together
for the sole purpose of religion in this case.
and built an incredibly beautiful church.
Thank you for your time.
Hello, my name is Oliver Knipp.
I go to Tice Creek Middle School
and I was an ambassador for the Hungarian Exchange Program.
As a part of this program,
I lived with a host family for nine days
and got to experience daily life in Hungary,
as well as historical sites and tourist attractions
throughout the area of Siafók.
For example, we met the mayor of Siafók
and even went to a local festival.
Going to Hungary, there were some challenges that popped up.
Not many people there spoke English.
So if I was asked a question, it would be pretty awkward.
I sometimes got confused with the different currency.
And sometimes when I was eating dinner with my host family,
I would get confused from the differences
between dining and culture.
I made so many great friends throughout my trip,
ones I'm guessing I'll talk to for a long time.
I missed seeing them and bonding with them.
I missed the times we went on the bus
and we wondered where we would go next.
Sometimes the castle and other times places like Budapest,
the capital of Hungary.
I would recommend this trip
for anyone thinking about doing it.
This changed my perspective about many things
like manners at the dinner table.
You'll make amazing friendships
and you'll have memories that last for a lifetime.
So I chose this picture because it shows the beauties
of Hungary as well as the historical side.
The view is amazing and the river just puts it all together
but it shows other things too.
You can see the older side of Budapest
and even the parliament building.
This beauty mixed with the historical opposite
makes this picture perfect.
Thank you for your time.
Good evening.
My name is Flynn Golston and I attend WCI middle school.
In this photo, you will see me putting a letter
that I wrote to the mayor of Sheofoke
in a case dedicated to gifts from Walnut Creek.
This is one of my favorite photos because it reminds me
that I will forever be a part of the history
between Walnut Creek and Sheaf Oak.
My name is Ruby Harris, I go to Foothill Middle School.
I had a wonderful experience going to Sheaf Oak, Hungary.
This is one of my favorite pictures that was taken.
It's with my host sister, Hana.
We went to this castle in the middle of nowhere
that was about 30 minutes away from Sheaf Oak.
It was really cool, it had a very large field
and a mini lake and I thought it was just a great experience
to have time to bond with my exchange student
and just get to know each other better.
I picked this photo because it was one of my favorite
memories from Hungary and I definitely go back if I could.
Thank you.
Hi, my name is Victoria Ling.
I go to Foothill Middle School
and I travel to Sjölfolk, Hungary.
This picture is a picture of one of my favorite memories
when I was there and we went to a zoo
where I got to ride this camel
And I got to see so many cool animals.
And I feel like it was a good experience
that I would never have here because it was just so
different.
And that's why it was one of my favorite memories.
Hello.
My name is Julia Mendegral.
And I go to Contra Costa Christian School.
I took this picture on Lake Balaton,
which is the largest in Central Europe.
And it was very fun to visit.
Thank you.
My name is Brendan Hurd.
and I am very happy to teach at Walla Creek Intermediate School.
On September 28th, I escorted nine students to Nochedo, Italy,
and it was my honor to chaperone them with Cece Purdle as well,
who was my excellent parent chaperone.
These kids were very, very well-behaved.
They honored our city.
I think both groups, that can be said,
very mature young people that were very positive
and gave a very good impression.
The mayor of Nocetto asked that I pass along
these wonderful gifts, but it was C.C. Purdle
who found this wonderful poster
in the Museum of Topography,
which, you know, it's a printing museum.
And there was, there's only three of these posters
and C.C. asked for it, they gave it to us
and C.C. got it framed, so.
So, this was actually printed when we were there in 2019.
That's what, see, 26th September 2019.
So, we were in that museum.
We have a photo of us in there printing this.
So, thanks for getting it back.
All right, and now it is my honor to,
oh, to introduce Simone Morrison and Henry Pickett.
Hi, my name is Simone Morrison.
I go to Foothill Middle School, and I went to Nocetto, Italy.
I am so lucky to have gotten the opportunity to go to Italy.
At first, I was really nervous and scared
to be away from home for so long.
But that week, I had so much fun meeting new people,
trying new foods, and visiting new places.
One of my favorite memories was getting
to go to the park with everyone because it was so amazing how
they knew everyone in their town.
It was fun going from house to house
and biking around on those days to get gelato and play
games in the park.
It wasn't until that last night when we were all crying
because we had to leave that I really realized
how much I loved Italy and all the memories I had made.
That is why I chose this picture that was taken
on our last day in Italy at the farewell dinner.
Hi, my name is Henry Pickett and I was an ambassador
to No Chedo, Italy from Walnut Creek Intermediate.
The most fun experience of our trip was Rome.
We went to Rome on Tuesday,
four days after arriving at No Chedo.
It was super fun because we got to get a look
at trains in Europe on how they differed
from trains back here.
Another factor that made Rome the best part of the trip
was all the history packed in the city.
There was so much architecture
that was there for thousands of years.
It was super exciting, learning about all of them
from the presentations our Italian brothers
slash sisters had ready for us.
For me and my host family especially,
this was an important experience beyond once in a lifetime.
I was lucky enough to be paired with the son
of the current mayor of Nochetto,
and this made my experience even more exciting.
I chose this photo because it really captures
how we've connected so quickly.
As this was taken on Sunday,
just a couple of days after we arrived.
It shows us all grouped together and smiling
after a joyful day together.
Hi, my name is Ella Abbott and I attend North Creek Academy.
I chose this picture because I really enjoyed
getting to go to my Shane sisters volleyball practice.
It was a lot of fun to get to meet all of her friends
from volleyball and just get to really experience
an actual day-to-day life,
what she does in her day-to-day life.
Thank you.
Hi, my name is Santiago Arguelis.
I go to WCI Middle School
and I travel to Nocetto, Italy.
I chose this photo because it really captures
how I got to really connect and talk to all the students
that attended that middle school in Italy.
Hi, I'm Elle Berry, I go to Escuela Bilingue Inter Nacional, and I went to Niceto, Italy,
and I chose this photo because it was one of my favorite days.
We went to Rome, and I feel like I learned a lot that day.
I feel like I learned a lot of history, and I saw a lot of amazing structures that I'd
never seen before, so it just really changed my perspective on like Europe.
Thank you.
Hello, my name is Scarlett Jenkins and I go to Tice Creek School. I went to
Nochado, Italy and my favorite memory was when we all got together very last
night and hung out both Italians and Americans. We were bonding a lot and I
felt like we were all family. We got to know each other and I loved that night
because it was really sweet when everybody got so upset we realized we
we're going to leave.
And it was just really nice.
Thank you.
Hi, I'm Kastin Klein, and I go to WCI.
I went to Nocetto, Italy, and my favorite memory or picture
was this one.
I thought it was so heartwarming and so cool
that we all bonded and connected over such a short period of time,
even though there was such a significant language barrier.
Hi, my name is Sydney Purdle.
I go to Foothill Middle School, and I chose this photo
because it shows that we really got to bond as a group.
And it's also in front of the Duomo Church in Milan,
which was my favorite place that we went to on the trip.
Hi, my name is Simone Valentini,
and I attend Foothill Middle School.
One of my favorite memories was riding our bikes
to the park with the Italian kids and the other ambassadors.
I chose this picture because it really shows
a strong bond that we created
and a friendship that will last a lifetime.
Thank you, guys.
Thank you, everyone.
It truly was an honor to be able to chaperone
and be with these children.
At the end of March, the students who generously hosted
our students will be visiting Walnut Creek.
We want to thank you in advance for all the efforts made on behalf of the city to welcome
our visitors and show off our city.
Thank you.
The city clerk gave us so we could pass them on to the government and our host.
Thank you.
I may be reaching out to some of you because in the next couple of weeks I will be attending
a Sister Cities International Conference outside of Shanghai, China, and my topic is youth
and education.
So this program will be on the hit parade of that event, so I look forward to bringing
some photos with me.
Thank you.
Next on our agenda is first of all we're going to give the Youth Ambassador Program five
minutes to get out of the chambers because they're going to a party.
We wish we could go.
While they're exiting the chambers and before we bring up the Youth Leadership Commission,
anyone is here for public comment on items not on the agenda I have two cards
at this point if anyone else will wish to speak under public comment for items
not on the agenda if you could come forward or go to the back of the room
and fill out a speaker card while we and this would not be for the appeal here
hearing nor for consent calendar no we're not calling people up yet I just
wanted to make sure we have speaker cards for all of you good evening and
welcome. Hi council thank you for having us today. So we are the Walnut Creek Youth Leadership
Commission and we're here today to introduce you to our 2023 and 2024 term commissioners. So without
further ado here's our commission. Thank you. My name is Ella Copper. This is my third year on
the commission. I'm a current senior at Northgate and throughout my past few years I've really got
to see the commission evolve through different projects and I'm really excited to continue our
our old projects and also start new ones, so thank you for having us today.
Good evening everyone. My name is Julia Chow and I'm currently a freshman here at
Northgate High School and I'm really excited because this is my first year
serving the Walnut Creek Leadership Youth Commission and I'm really looking
forward to the experiences that I'll make with everyone and I'm also really
happy to get to work with everyone to work on projects that will benefit our
community and environment that we live in. So I'm really looking forward to this
wonderful year. Thank you. Good evening, my name is Ari Ryack. I am currently a
junior at Los Lomas High School and this will be my first year on the Youth
Commission and I'm very grateful for this opportunity to enact change in my
community and give a voice to the youth. Thank you for your time. Good evening, my
name is Anna Sofia Ivanova and I am a freshman at Los Lomas High School and a
newly appointed youth commissioner. I am very excited to be here tonight
so thank you to everyone for having us. I hope to aid in empowering youth voices
in our commit in our community during my time on the Commission and I look
forward to working with the commissioners and the council. Thank you.
Hello council members as well as the general public. My name is Adam Tar. I am
a senior from Los Alamos High School and this will be my first year on the youth
Commission. I'm really excited to bring both the youth perspective and my own
own youth or my own perspective which I've gathered over my entire life to
the city so that we can work on discussions, city projects, and city
decision-making. Thank you for having us. Hello my name is Maseo Tong and I'll be
a junior at Los Lomas. This is my second year on the Commission and I'm looking
forward to working on our Commission projects and positively impacting our
community. Hello I'm Gaeth Korsheed and this is my second year on the Commission
and I'm also a senior at Los Lomas High School and I'm trying to get to know all
our new youth commissioners and continue working on all our wonderful projects.
Hi, my name is Keaton Petracco. I'm a sophomore at Los Alamos High School. This is my first
year on the Youth Commission and I'm excited for the opportunity to change my city and
get the youth more involved in our city. Hello. Hello, I'm Ethan Kim. I'm a senior
at Los Alamos High School and this will be my first year on the Youth Commission. I look
forward to engaging the youth in our city through many youth projects, especially those
and astronomy during my tenure as youth commissioner. Thank you. Hello City Council members. My name
is William Montgomery. I'm currently a senior at the Corey Lane High School. This is now my first
year on the Youth Leadership Commission. In my service in the commission I'm looking forward
in particular to involving the youth of the city in further in city business through collaborations
with other organizations like the Boy Scouts in which I'm very active. I'm very looking forward
to it. Thank you. Good evening my name is Armin Jamgachian I'm a senior at Los
Lomas High School and this is this will be my first year on the Youth
Commission. I look forward to keep progressing on the projects that the
Youth Commission is currently working on and starting new projects concerning the
climate. Thank you. Hello everyone my name is Melissa Adatepe and I'm a junior at
at Occalani's High School.
And during my first year as a Youth Commissioner,
I wanna engage with my community
and familiarize myself with all the community members
and make a change for the better.
Specifically focusing on launching new initiatives
and projects with my amazing team.
Thank you.
Hi everyone, I'm Arjun Krishnan.
I'm a senior at Campolendo High School.
This is my second year on the commission.
Last year we worked on some exciting projects
and I learned a lot.
And I'm excited to continue that this year
with the new commission.
Thank you.
Hi, my name is Aaron.
Before I get into the rest of my introduction,
I think a little background on the Youth Leadership Commission
might be helpful.
So we're a group of 15 youth from Walnut Creek
who come up with a few different projects every year,
and we work on this project
in an attempt to improve Walnut Creek.
So I'm currently a sophomore at Head Royce,
and this is my second year on the commission.
Last year, I really enjoyed learning a little bit more
about my city government and some of the people that work
in the government.
This year I'm looking forward to working on our new projects
with the new members of our commission.
Thank you.
Did all of you have an opportunity
to introduce yourselves?
Well, first of all, congratulations
on your appointment to the Youth Commission, Youth Leadership
Commission.
And thank you for being willing to invest your time and talent
in helping to make our community a better place,
as well as to help make it a better place for youth like you.
So thank you very, very much.
We look forward to working with you
and getting to know you better as the year progresses.
And have a good evening and thank you for being here.
Item number two on our agenda is the consent calendar.
We have seven items on the consent calendar this evening.
Do any members of the council wish to pull an item
from the consent calendar?
I see none.
Does any member of the public wish to speak
to an item on the consent calendar?
I will entertain a motion to approve.
Move to approve the consent calendar items A through F.
Joe?
A, G?
Second.
And does that include any changes that were presented
at the dais?
I think we have a fair correction.
Yes, there's one for the city minutes.
So yes, including all amendments.
Second.
Thank you.
Would the city clerk please take the roll call vote?
Mayor Pro Tem Hask you.
Aye.
Council member Wilks.
Aye.
Council member Darling.
Aye.
Council member Francois.
by motion carries unanimously item number three on the agenda is public
communications on items that are not on the agenda this evening this portion of
the meeting is reserved for comments on items that are not on the agenda under
the brown act the council cannot act on these items raised during public
communications but we may respond briefly to statements made or questions
posed requests clarification or refer the item to staff if you wish to speak
under this item please come forward now. I have a card from David Harder who will
take first and Pete Bennett who will take second. You will be we will allocate
up to 30 minutes starting at this is 635 for communication on items not on the
agenda. Mr. Harder you'll be first you have up to two minutes and we'll give
you a minute to get yourself. Anyone else besides Mr. Harder and Mr. Bennett wish
to speak to us on items not on the agenda tonight? Just a procedural
question if I may before I start. I provided a graphic and I presume that
you you have a copy but it's not projectable. We all have a copy. Thank
Thank you Mr. Harder. Okay, thank you. Madam Mayor and honorable members of this council.
My name is David Harder and I reside... Did you speak a little louder into the microphone?
I don't think... Sorry. My name is David Harder and I reside at 1584 Geary Road in
Walnut Creek. My purpose this evening is to present an aquatic center layout that
preserves aquatic programs, maintains safe access, and saves money. Three
alternative proposals were presented at last Wednesday's open house, plus the
city's proposal. Unfortunately, all four proposals share a common flaw, dangerous
street access and street crossing. The separate aquatic center shown on the
attached graphic. Maintain safe access from the parking lot. The existing deep
pool remains saving money. Freed space south of the community center would
allow less pond fill also saving money. What I've done is I took the existing
aquatic center and just pivoted around the deep pool. Plenty of work to do to
make it a reality. But I have two final thoughts. First, the separate centers have
independent parking access. Two large events at the same time will have
minimal conflict. Second, the city should contract directly with aquatic designs
for construction documents.
Over the last 30 years, they have received over 140 awards,
awards for their pool projects, 140.
They know their business, and why put a third party
in the middle?
Thank you for your time and attention.
You're referring to the architect?
Yes.
Thank you.
Thank you for comments.
Mr. Bennett, you're up next, please.
Hi.
Everybody knows me.
I've spoken here about 50 times.
My name is Pete Bennett.
I have a bad story, and the city council knows it.
I've been beaten up in Walnut Creek.
I've been arrested, detained.
I've had my cars towed away.
My family's been murdered.
My roommate from Walnut Creek is dead.
My other roommate from Walnut Creek is dead.
My friend used to work here in Walnut Creek.
He was murdered in 2002.
One of my employees was killed.
His sister was killed with Officer Starzick.
It's very bad.
Mr. Buxay, could you ask the city attorney
if the city of Walnut Creek is supposed
to protect a citizen that's going through things
that I'm going through?
Is five beatings enough for you?
You need to direct your comments to the City Council toward me.
Thank you.
Mayor Silva, would you ask the City Manager to ask the City Attorney whether or not the
City has an obligation to protect me?
Because I get death threats every day.
In fact, I just got 10 of them while sitting here in this room, being stalked by somebody.
Would you like to pay attention to the fact that I'm still alive?
that I've almost been strangled to death in the library,
that I've been beaten on Locust Street,
and I've been beaten on Sierra Drive,
and that man was murdered and conquered
three days after the district attorney resigned,
who I've known for 30 years,
who investigated the murder of my friend in 1988.
That's how bad it is.
Murders everywhere.
And I have a role in 9-11 that's bigger
than anybody knows about,
and I'm gonna start to share it on walnutcreekpolice.com,
because I'm sick of this.
My life is important to me.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Jennifer Koh, please.
Good evening, everyone.
My name is Jennifer Koh.
I'm the resident of Warner Creek.
And today, I'm coming here.
I want to introduce you to the new nonprofit organization that
is the Taiwanese American Cultural Center of East Bay.
Actually we begin this organization since last year,
but then our main, I mean, the most important
that I mentioned is we want to promote Taiwanese culture
and make a deep connection with the local community here.
So, like currently one of our biggest project is
we are going to build a brand new community
center in Wanna Creek.
So this is a, okay, this is a concert, the fundraising,
kind of introduce what this community center will be.
So in this concert, we will provide you
more information about this center,
and we will promote Taiwanese culture,
Taiwanese music in this concert.
And then so I think not only to build the building,
but we also try to cooperate with the Taiwanese government,
especially the Department of Education.
So we will provide good quality, like a cultural learning,
language learning in Wanna Creek.
So I hope everyone can, yeah, if you're interested in that.
And I hope we were, I'm still thinking
about to design some program.
We can offer the kind of a local school
if they want their kids to explore the different culture,
like myself is, my specialty is in the music appreciation.
So if they, anyone interested in that
and want to know more about Taiwan,
we are so happy to provide everything that we can do.
Okay, thank you so much.
Thank you very much.
It's very interesting.
I look forward to hearing more about this.
Any other members of the public wish
to speak to us this evening on items not on our agenda?
Then I will close the public forum
and go next to council and staff announcements,
reports on activities or requests.
And we're going to stay focused tonight
on our activities on behalf of the council
that we have been doing,
which are considered the Assembly Bill 1234 activities.
Mayor Pro Tem, could I call on you first?
You surely may.
I'm going to start with the fact that I co-chair
the Contra Costa Mayors Conference,
and we had a meeting and learned a lot about BART.
They encouraged all of us to take advantage
of all the really wonderful new things that they're doing.
I'm with the Mayor on the Arts Alliance Task Force,
and we did a little analysis about how we did
for Arts in August and search for new ideas
about attracting people downtown.
Broadway doesn't count.
No.
I met with the transportation public works lobbyist
from Cal Cities and we talked about items
that we think we would like the state level people
to hear about so that we can get support for our programs.
I was at Innovate 680, which is a review
of the happenings for the improvements at highway 680.
And we got a report about a system that will coordinate
not only what happens on 680,
but also with the traffic within the feeder cities
and the roads.
TransPac was a review of the entities
that we support with our Measure J money
for reviews such as of the, hang on,
let my brain catch up with my mouth or vice versa,
a review of the programs that we have
that help the elderly and the infirm.
I went to the Accessible Transportation
Coordinating Committee and we reviewed the record
of the elderly and there is a special new program
in San Pablo, one seat, one ride.
So it's pick up here and get you to wherever you're going
in if you're appropriately impaired,
get you to wherever you're going in the county.
Walnut Creek downtown had an October Fest
and I volunteered Friday for that community service day.
Last year, I sewed and I had poked fingers
because I was sewing.
This year, I burned my fingers
because I was fluffing petticoats in the thing.
And then finally, I did Farmer's Market.
This is my reminder that every,
almost every Sunday at the Farmer's Market,
one of us is there to bring your things
and I remind people that my hours are strictly 10 to noon.
So if you want to get me, and I'm there next Sunday,
remember the hours are 10 to noon,
and I really like pleasant conversation.
Council Member Darling.
Thank you.
A couple of us attended.
Supervisor Ken Carlson opened his new office,
so he had a nice open house at his new office,
and got to see his grandfather's desk in there,
and it was pretty cool.
We did on Broadway, and I think we all did that,
but I told him I'll talk about that.
For community service day, I made my husband come with me
to help paint the fence at Civic Park,
and it was quite the task.
We all got it done.
And the good thing about doing that job
was that it's right next to Oktoberfest,
so we went over there and begged the nice lady
with the bratwurst to hurry up and cook them
and sell them some for lunch.
With the mayor, I attended the groundbreaking
for Hope Solutions, six cottages over at Grice Presbyterian.
the estimated construction time,
the permitting time on that project has been very long.
The way they're planning on building those cottages,
they are anticipating eight weeks construction
because it's a very modulized construction.
The building industry is donating their workers
to help build the units offsite and bring them in.
So that's gonna be an exciting project to follow
and see how it works and how it comes to life.
We also, the Bishop, the Episcopalian Bishop came in,
blessed the Trinity Center.
It was his first chance to be there,
and it was a great chance for all the folks
that work on Trinity Center to come together
and celebrate what has been a very successful effort
to help the homeless in our city.
The Power Association of California,
I'm a member of that as part of my commitment to NCE,
and they had a briefing on the upcoming,
the past legislative session and the priorities
for next year and the priorities in the energy world
are really going to be trying to find ways
to keep the costs under control,
to look at modernizing the grid,
and to how the community choice aggregates like MCE
which sell power as a nonprofit to all of us
can continue to work with the investor owned utilities
in a way that keeps the lights on
keeps everything going in California and that covers everything from Diablo
Canyon to spitting in the wind. So that was my report. Thank you. Council member
Wilk. Thank you. Well, last week I was at the American Public Transportation
Association Convention. It's the North American one. It's every three years and
it was in Orlando and I went as a member of County Connections Board of
Directors and got a chance to see some of the new innovations that are coming
out that we can start looking forward to seeing on our streets and in the streets in the region.
We got a tour of the hydrogen fuel cell buses manufacturing companies, and we already voted
on that at County Connection to start moving toward completely clean energy on all of our
new buses.
And so we can look forward to County Connection having a hydrogen fuel bus, most likely starting
in 2026.
So we saw what these looked like.
These are going to be terrific and more on that in a few years.
There was also some of the innovations that were highlighted at the conference were Bart's
innovation of transit ambassadors and crisis intervention specialists and admin supervisors
that go through CARS was actually named one of the most innovations of the conference,
just of ways to deal with issues prior to them becoming criminal activities.
And so it kind of seemed to me something that was obvious when we heard about this here,
but evidently this is fairly new to the conference and people in the country.
So they were proud to get that honor.
I also was able to see 3D printing for prototypes, which typically are used for old parts that
are hard to find.
So a lot of the buses that are out there may be many years old.
They start to wear out.
They're at the new fleet of buses and they can't find those parts anymore.
So now these companies that are out there, they manufacture these 3-D products that you
just can't find anywhere.
So that, to me, was just fascinating that we can start to do that.
As Councilmember Darling mentioned, we all went on Broadway, and as the liaison to the
DRAA, it was reported that over $600,000 in fundraising before costs came from the on-Broadway
event.
obviously there's going to be costs that come out after that but it was
extremely successful. I had a meeting with our Housing Committee with Mayor
Silva today discussing a proposal to review the process, criteria, and
evaluation for affordable housing funding requests. That will be coming to
Council for review and discussion in the next few weeks. Councilmember
Francois and I spoke to a few government classes at Los Lomas yesterday regarding
local government and how does local government fit in with federal
government and state government. We've done this now for about four years and
oh always great to see and great to see the kind of engagement from the
students. I also went to Northgate High School last night it was a school day
for me and Northgate they had a Harvey Milk commemoration plaque for the 1978
Prop 6 debate that actually happened at Northgate. That was a proposition that
sought to prevent gay or lesbian teachers
being hired in public schools, and it lost.
And so now, at Stuart Milk, his nephew
was the primary speaker last night,
and now there's a plaque when you first walk into the gym.
So it had about 200 people in attendance there.
And I also want to mention that last week, as we know,
Israel suffered a horrendous attack by Hamas.
When I, when I.
I'm going to ask you to, we can save that till the end.
If you would like to make a public comment from the dais,
but that's not business.
Mayor, I'm the first Jewish elected council member
in the history of Walnut Creek.
And are you going to prevent me from talking about the worst
attack on Jews since the Holocaust?
I'm going to invite you to speak to the public dais
and speak from there.
Right now?
Yes.
I'm happy to do that.
I think this is highly unusual, but I will follow it.
It is not an item on our agenda.
We talk about things that aren't on our agenda all the time,
Mayor.
Respectfully, we talk about it all the time.
The most horrendous attack on Jews
since the history of World War II occurred last week.
When I visited Israel in March with the Bay Area
network of Jewish elected officials delegation,
we visited Kabut's Kafarazah on the border of Gaza.
We met people and it was a peaceful, peaceful community
with young families.
Kafarazah was the site of one of the worst hit casualties
and kidnappings in the Hamas attack.
It's hard to fathom.
People that we met are no longer.
Many in the Jewish community here are worried and upset.
And many have family and friends in Israel.
Reach out to your Jewish friends here and abroad.
Ask how they're doing.
They will appreciate it.
I've appreciated it.
I've heard from people I haven't heard from in years
asking how I'm doing.
With anti-Semitism on the rise in America,
which we've unfortunately even witnessed in our own city
council meetings, we pray for the safety
and for the safe return of those who are kidnapped
and are now hostages.
This horrific violence is heartbreaking.
And with a response by Israel, we
know there will be more casualties, many more
casualties in the days and weeks ahead.
Innocent mothers, fathers, children, and grandparents
in Gaza and in Israel will become victims
and suffer great loss.
To break this never-ending cycle of violence,
I hope that we can teach our children and our grandchildren
to seek to understand one another.
As we've always seen hate leads to violence
and violence leads to unbearable pain and suffering.
Here's to wishing our younger generations
a more peaceful future.
Council Member Francois.
Thank you, Mayor.
I, with all my colleagues, attended on Broadway
as did the city attorney and city manager.
Thank you for the support.
I'm glad to hear that it was such a successful event.
I was at Community Service Day last Saturday
out at Heather Farm, spreading bark material and landscape
cover, which might cease to be my go-to job on community
service day.
And I enjoy it.
And I wanted to thank especially Boys Team
Charity and the Aqua Nuts for showing up.
And then after I was at Heather Farm,
I went to one of our local Safeways.
And I want to thank the Rotary for volunteering there
to collect food for the Contra Costa Food Bank.
Let's see, Council Member Wilk talked about attending the government class.
And I just want to thank, we had an opportunity to meet the new principal at Los Lomas to Heather Thorner.
And we had a good exchange with her.
She identified a few issues, some traffic related, some public safety related opportunities to be more involved in the town.
And I just wanted to thank Captain Brown.
I wanted to thank Smodar Boardman and also Kathy Hemingway who I think, you know, within
maybe a half hour of Councilmember Wilk sending the e-mail each of you reached out directly
to the principal and we appreciate you doing that and creating that strong partnership
with our local schools.
I will have a chamber board meeting this Thursday, so I will report on that at our next meeting.
Thank you.
Thank you.
On that same note at Los Lomas last Wednesday evening, I want to thank the police department
for their participation in a panel on gun safety and how to manage and avoid gun violence
in our local schools.
And this was at Los Lomas High School and featured the superintendent of the district,
the principal at Los Lomas, the superintendent of the Walnut Creek School District, and administrators
from there as well as Chief Jamie Knox and I got to be a part of it as well and I think
it was very informative for the 60 to 75 people that were there and I want to thank the police
department again for their participation.
I want to congratulate the diversity organizations in Rossmore.
They had their third annual diversity festival last week and it was well attended by more
than a thousand Rossmore residents and it's really a testament to what we can do when
when we work together.
I want to thank the more than 1,000 people
who participated in a community service day this last Saturday.
We were all over the community in 34, 35 different projects.
And I really want to also thank the city employees
in public works and arts and recreation
for your commitment to helping us organize projects
that the community could really get behind,
whether it was painting fences like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn,
spreading bark or making crafts or helping fluff fluff the petticoats for
a Christmas carol that's coming up at the leisure center so thank you to the
city staff for helping us to do that and I will now go back to the city
manager and city attorney to see if you have any reports. Madam Mayor there's no
reportable closed session items this evening. Just one update this evening
Dan Buckshi, City Manager, last Wednesday was the first of our community outreach events
related to the design of the new aquatics and community center that's planned for Heather
Farm Park.
It was a couple hours.
We did have a large turnout with a couple hundred folks and did just want to highlight
this is the very beginning of the process.
We have several other pop-up events in which all community members are welcome.
Those are being blasted out everywhere through social media, our website and otherwise.
and then we'll also be meeting with specific interest groups for their very
detailed feedback as well. So I just wanted to highlight that that process is
now underway. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you very much. Next item on our agenda is
Public Hearing. This is an appeal of the Planning Commission's decision
to modify the conditional use permit for Spoontonic Lounge, which
is located at 2580 North Main Street. We will begin the hearing with a
presentation by staff. Good evening Council members. My name is Kimia
Mahalati. I'm an attorney at Myers-Nawade. I've been assisting staff and PD with
the matter before us. I thought I'd just give some opening introductory remarks.
So we're here tonight to consider the appeal filed by the business owners of
Spuntonic Lounge and their request that the City Council overturns the Planning
Commission's decision from its public meeting on August 24th, where the Planning Commission
made specific findings that Spoontonic, as operated, constitutes a public nuisance and
is in violation of the deemed approved performance standards and conditions of approval in their
conditional use permit.
I wanted to quickly clarify that aside from the first condition, which was to change the
hours of operation from 2 a.m. daily to 1130 p.m. sea service and sales and 12
a.m. closing daily. The other conditions that are listed on the draft resolution
before you tonight, those are not in contention and these are conditions
that are already included on any CUP for alcohol selling establishment. So just
wanted to clarify that quickly. Their main contention, as I stated, is on the
proposed earlier closing time. And according to the Appellant's Notice of
Appeal, they'll be requesting that the City Council deny the Planning
Commission's decision to modify the CUP, to the extent that it does reflect an
earlier closing time, or to stay the modification and reconsider the matter
in six months in order to allow Spoontonic time to cure any violations.
But staff believes and the evidence shows that Spoontonic has had ample time
Already the city sent spoon tonic a notice of violation and notice of public hearing on August 10th
And I also want to note that lieutenant Bruce Jower of the Walnut Creek Police Department has been in communications with spoon tonic lounge
since at least the fall of
2022 and has alerted them of the issues that they have been having since then as evidenced by some of the letters that are in
your packet this evening, so
Staff and I also met with the representatives from Spuntonic lounge a few days before the August 24th Planning Commission hearing
Where we had an opportunity to discuss our concerns with the business owners directly and encourage them to come up with the solid business plan
That would bring them in conformance with the deemed approved standards and the conditions of their CUP
At the August 24th Planning Commission hearing the Planning Commission also encouraged the representatives from Spuntonic to attend the
Community Bar meetings and encourage them to work with staff and PD to cure their issues
It is our understanding that no such communications with the city have occurred except for those of a practical nature having to do with
Their appeal and they have also not once attended these community bar meetings either before or after the August 24th Planning Commission hearing
To our understanding so they've had ample opportunity to cure the issues that bring them before you today and as the data before you shows
and as Chip Griffin and Lieutenant Jower will further describe for you shortly in
their presentation, there continue to be problematic incidents since the date of
the August 24th hearing. And I also want to note that Spuntonic has had more
incidents of criminal activity and public nuisance compared to two similar
nearby businesses, Retro Junkie and Masses combined, despite the fact that
Retro Junkie has twice the maximum occupancy and Masses has three times the
maximum occupancy as Spontonic Lounge and I'm highlighting that because
despite arguments by Spontonic representatives that their problems are
a product of society at large and that an earlier closing time will simply be
you know kicking the can down the road so to speak the data shows that these
issues have to do with the way that they've been operating and the fact is
that they've simply not been operating in conformance with their deemed approved
standards and the conditions of their CUP. So after the City Council conducts
this hearing the City's code provides that the Council may either reverse,
affirm, or modify the August 24th Planning Commission decision or refer
the matter back to the Planning Commission for further consideration.
Staff maintains the position that there is evidence of nuisance activities that
continue to occur at Spoontonic Lounge and recommends that the City Council
adopt a resolution denying Spuntonic's appeal of the Planning Commission's action and affirm
the decision to modify Spuntonic's CUP to reflect a last call of 1130 and a daily closing
time of 12am.
So I'll now turn it over to Chip Griffin and Lieutenant Bruce Jower for their presentations
and the three of us are happy to answer questions as they come up or after we're finished presenting.
Thank you very much.
you and Mr. Griffin while you come up I'm going to outline the structure of
this hearing the staff presentation is underway at this point we started with
the assistant city attorney and it will involve you and other members of staff
then we will open the public hearing after any questions that we might have
of staff open the public hearing and the appellant presentation will be up to 15
minutes and which at the end of which Council may ask questions of the
appellant then we will have public comment public testimony currently we
allow up to two minutes for any individuals not the appellant wishing to
address the council on this matter if there is a group representing if there
is a speaker representing a bona fide group that group may be allotted up to
ten minutes for an organized presentation in lieu of other members of
of the group speaking.
At the end of the public comment period,
the appellant will have up to five minutes for rebuttal,
then we will close the public hearing
and bring it back to the council for deliberation.
Thank you for indulging me.
Thank you, Mayor.
Mayor Pro Tem, City Council.
My name's Chip Griffin.
I'm a principal planner with the Planning Division
Community Development Department.
And as Camille said, I'm here to continue the presentation
for the Spontonic Appeal.
As stated, we're here to review the operation of Spuntonic Lounge in
conformance with their deemed approved and also with the conditions of their
CUP. Take public testimony, make written findings that this operation does indeed
constitute a public nuisance and again adopt a resolution denying the
appeal of the Planning Commission's decision affirming a closing time of 12
am with a stop service at 1130. Just a little context here. It's the location of
Spoontonics is 2580 North Main. I'm a planner so I put up the general
plan land use and zoning service commercial. It's located on the east side
of North Main. These maps are oriented towards the north and it's
located on a lot that is between North Main and the 680 Caltrans corridor. The
Spoon Tonic, as you can see closer here, you can see the outline of the property
in red. It's accessed from SOS Drive as shown by the yellow arrow. Spoon Tonic
has a rear access. It's in a lower portion of a split level building. The main
frontage along North Main is Soror Indian Restaurant. The yellow arrow
above, shows the entrance to Spoontonic. That is their main, possibly only, public entrance.
And you can see with their parking spaces down in the lower lot.
Just a little background here for the business. And although there are two CUPs for ease of
reference, they are best characterized as one CUP with the two elements that are collectively
referred to in your agenda report as the CUP.
The conditions of approval set forth in the CUPs are still applicable.
The deemed approved performance standards differ from the CUP conditions in that they
are general in nature can be applied to all alcoholic beverage establishments equally
and focus on nuisance and criminal activity that may be associated with the sales rather
than the use.
establishing pursuant to a CUP like Sputonic, continued to have to operate pursuant to
the conditions of their CUP, as well as the deemed approved performance standards.
Referring now to the last bullet, in August the Planning Commission adopted Resolution
3933, which reduced their closing time as stated, and this is the subject of the appeal.
At this hearing, at the hearing on August 24th, the Planning Commission was determined
Spoonton constitutes a public nuisance.
After hearing staff's recommendations to close at 11, which would be similar in nature
to an administrative use permit allowance, the Planning Commission action was to find
the operation is a nuisance and to increase the hours recommended by staff by one hour,
the last call at 1130 and to close close of business at midnight.
Spoon Tonic then of course filed an appeal in a timely manner. The points of
appeal can really be boiled down to three. The city's city has in one would
be the city has insufficient basis to take that action and less restrictive
alternatives could be could have been taken. Two, Spoon Tonic needs more time
for their current efforts to make a difference. And three, that the
modification would infringe upon or violate their vested
rights.
An alcoholic beverage establishment shall retain its
deemed-approved status only if it conforms to all of the
following deemed-approved performance standards.
We will take a look at the test for these standards in a
minute after we discuss the police activity and violations
that have occurred starting in 2021, and I will introduce
Lieutenant Jower to provide that information then I'll return.
Good evening, Madam Mayor Silva and members of the City Council.
I am Lieutenant Jower with the Police Department.
I serve as the Sector 2 Watch Commander for the Department overseeing the area where Spontonic
Lounge is located.
So I'd like to talk about the Call of Service within the last three years, specifically
between March 20, 21 through October 2023.
What you see before you is a chart that on the left shows categories of crimes as it
relates directly to calls for service at Sputonic Lounge.
In 2021 we had 12 calls for service, in 22 we had 20, and in 23 we had 11.
So for the time period of 31 months we've had 41 calls for service.
38 of these calls for service, which is significant, is after 11 p.m.
So that's one reason why, at the Planning Commission hearing, we recommended that closing
time at first be 11 p.m.
looking at this chart in 2022 we've had four events that recovered four
firearms and in 23 we had one event that recovered one firearm excuse me we had
total of five events but in the total of the events there's actually seven
firearms recovered the reason why I mentioned this is because on the next
Next slide. It describes more in detail the types of crime that occurred in each year,
as you see on the slide. The 2021, you have 22, and then you have 23. I specifically would
like to address 2023 regarding August 21st. The reason why I want to talk about this at
the Planning Commission hearing the management of Spontonic Lounge made
comments of increasing their security making sure they did more sweeps of the
parking lot to make sure during closing they've cleared the parking lots and
made sure that their patrons and staff were safe in during closing hours. Well
three days before the last hearing the Planning Commission hearing on August
21st, Wanna Creek responded to an incident where we got a call of a
missing person. Um, the reporting party stated that the missing person was last
seen as poontonic lounge. So obviously getting this information, the police
department reacted and start searching for this missing person. The missing
person happened to be a young female, um, and last called the reporting party
from the inside of Sputonic Lounge
and stated that she was leaving the establishment.
Moving forward, when we started the search
and we started looking for this female, we actually found her.
We found her passed out underneath a van
by herself in the parking lot of Sputonic Lounge.
So the significance of this is that they
said that they were doing increased sweeps,
increasing the security. And this was three days before the hearing. Um, this
is actual evidence that at that time that that was not the case. Um, on that
same call, when we located the female, we also located a second male in the
same parking lot who is also passed out in his car. So I just want to touch
upon that specific incident before the last public hearing.
I'm going to skip a few slides to this slide.
So this graph represents the calls for service data
that I just previously explained to you regarding the 43 calls
for service.
When you look at the lines, the blue line represents 2021,
The three main categories, the three top categories for that year were fights, alcohol-related
incidents, and narcotics calls.
That year in July, we had a quadruple shooting which resulted in the death of one person.
In that case, in their agenda report, there's more specifics on that state that the involved
parties were actually patrons of spuntonics prior to that shooting.
Um, they left, went into the parking lot and that's when the shooting occurred in 2022.
You can see that the three categories top categories would be the fights, gun possession
and alcohol related calls represented by the orange line.
2022 was worse than 2021.
It's just, it was just a bad recipe of things like another shooting could possibly happen.
So I think we're lucky that nothing did, but that's just a bad mixture of calls that could
have happened during that year.
In 2003, represented by the Gray Line, the three main categories is alcohol-related calls,
fights, and then all with one incident you have a narcotics call, a gun possession call,
and a domestic violence call.
So, how does Spuntonic Lounge compare with Retro Junkie and Masses?
Well, cost for service total for the three years in Spuntonic Lounge was 43.
For Retro Junkie it was 69.
For Masses it was 6.
When you look at that slide, please focus on the fights, the alcohol-related incidents
and the gun possession.
As you can see, Spuntonic Lounge,
as mentioned by city attorney Kamiya,
is twice as small in capacity as Retro Junkie
and three times as small in capacity as Mass A's.
But yet they have had 15 fights
compared to Retro Junkie's 10 in Mass A's too.
Alcohol related incident, Retro Junkie,
I'm sorry, Spuntonics had 11, Retrojunkie had 36,
MSAs had two.
When it goes to gun possession,
Spuntonics had four gun possession arrests,
and the other two had zero.
So that graph shows the comparison of cause
of what I just described to you.
And as mentioned before, the lower graph shows
the number of calls per maximum capacity.
When you're looking at the maximum capacity with a number of calls, theoretically a smaller
establishment should have less incidences than a larger establishment when operating
at maximum capacity.
So that's what this slide represents as far as comparison.
And I'm going to go back a few slides and I'm going to bring Chip back up here to conclude
our presentation now moving moving forward the city council and the appeal
may use all of the evidence in the record and may use these standards
referred previously as tests for deemed approved to decide whether the
establishment has violated their deemed approved performance standards the staff
report includes an explanation of how they do not demonstrate compliance with
the deemed approved performance standards.
In addition to the findings, um,
finding a violation of the deemed approved performance standards,
the city council may use additional consideration, uh,
in making finding that the establishment is in violation of the CUP and their
conditions of approval in the CUP.
And we have listed these two relevant considerations.
The planning commission found on recommendation of staff,
including community development, police and the city attorney's office,
these findings for the City Council's consideration,
as shown here.
Due to the severity and long-term ongoing nature
of the violations of the deemed-approved
performance standards and the CUP conditions of approval,
described in this report,
and given that most of the serious criminal activity
occurs after 11 p.m.,
staff recommends that the City Council move to a draft
resolution denying the appeal and modifying Spontonic CUP
by limiting the hours of operation to 12 a.m. seven days a week, which would include seizing
the sale of alcoholic beverages at 1130 on a daily basis, as well as imposing any other
necessary and appropriate conditions on the operation of the business.
This modification would allow Spuntonic to maintain their deemed-approved status and
their CUP, as well, to sell alcoholic beverages with just these added limitations.
these two modifications would not affect Spontonic's ability to have live music.
And with that, myself, Lieutenant Jower, and Camille Malafee, we're here to answer any
questions that you might have.
Thank you very much.
Questions for staff?
Councilmember Francois.
Thank you, Mayor.
Let's see.
I think most of mine are probably for Lieutenant Jower.
So you had the comparative chart up there.
don't need to put it back up but I'm just what kind of struck me I guess was
the relatively few number of incidents for Masses I think something like six
over a similar period of time is that kind of within the range that the normal
number of police incidents for a bar in the Walnut Creek area with similar
operating hours as spontonic? For size, for massaged size, actually that's
actually low, the low average. It's pretty low for an establishment with a
occupancy of over 280 occupants. So it's much lower. Okay, and then I'm
interested in, it's a big space and it's not always fully occupied and so that
doesn't necessarily surprise me. It can you talk a little bit about the bar
meetings that are conducted with the police department and the bar owners and
kind of what kind of issues are discussed there and kind of what kind of
positive things come out of that. Yes sir. So monthly we have bar meetings with
the owners of all the bars that encompass downtown as well as those
just outside of downtown such as retro junkie messes and spoon tonics. Every
month the owners get together with a represent from the police department to
discuss any type of issues revolving crimes, calls for service, security
concerns and just running ideas with owners and seeing how they could better
provide safety to their staff and patrons. We also discuss when I used to
be the bar liaison we would discuss recent events sometimes the night before
sometimes within the week and definitely trends that are happening within the bar
community. The great part about these bar meetings is that all the owners, they
network with each other and they share ideas and they're very open in helping
each other out. During 2022 and most of 23 and 21, I was like the bar's liaison
and I attended all these meetings. And what I mentioned in the Planning
Commission hearing, there is always your same group of owners but there is also
people that were never there and I never see never saw any representation from
from Spoontonic Lounge during all my times going to a bar meeting.
And you had mentioned to them or staff had mentioned to them that as an
opportunity and that they could have taken advantage of.
Yes, so during
2022 when most of my conversations I had with management with the tonic lounge I
Mentioned these bar meetings and how it would be beneficial to attend for the reasons I gave
But they never showed up so I mean as
Well as when we had our Planning Commission hearing
The Planning Commission recommended for them to after this hearing to get a hold of us reach out and
Start attending these meetings and there's been two meetings since and once again
Representation from Sputonic Lounge had not showed up
So and you know, I was looking at one of the attachments of the staff report. It was a supplemental report
I think that you had prepared on the incidents and these seem pretty serious to me
firearms, over-serving of alcohol, fights, domestic violence, gun possession.
Those are, I don't want to ask a leading question, but are those the typical types of incidents police is responding to at bars in Walnut Creek?
It happens, but that's not a typical response.
If you were to just compare this with the report that's before you,
compared just to Retro Junkie and Mass A, as you can see, they didn't have any.
And as well, downtown bars, I haven't recalled any incidents where we've had any gun
possessions or violent crimes recently at any other
establishments that I know of downtown in the last year or so.
And then finally, this one might be more for Chip or someone with some historical
memory I recall that we we've dealt with a deemed approved operation before I
believe it was Krogan's Krogan's and and we had the same issue with kind of not
complying with the performance standards and do you recall what the closing time
that we recommended for them was well I think that that that occasion is what
was what were the deemed approved status or the deemed approved performance
standards were born of, after that.
I am not absolutely sure,
but I think it was 11, I think it was the same.
You know, back to the AUP, hours of operation.
Which was the staff's initial recommendation
here in Planning Commission was a little more lenient
and had a 12 a.m. close?
I can actually speak to that, Council Member Francois.
So, Krogan's was in 2016,
The deemed approved ordinance was passed in 2012, but the outcome was similar because
that was an establishment that didn't need a CUP at the time that it was established,
and so it was deemed approved at the time that that ordinance passed.
And I believe that what the closing time ended up being was a stop service at 12 a.m. and
a closing time of 12.30 a.m.
And I think staff's initial recommendation was actually to revoke their deemed approved
status altogether. We should have prohibited them from being able to serve
alcohol at all. That's helpful and they thank you for that memory. You
weren't even here so that's even more impressive that they did not have a CUP
either. They were just operating under deemed approved status. That is correct.
Okay. This establishment has been operating pursuant to a CUP since
before the 2012 deemed approved ordinance but they are still subject to
those same deemed approved performance standards as all other alcohol beverage establishments
are.
Great.
Thank you.
Sure.
I had no further questions at this time.
I just had a quick question.
This might be a chip question.
It sounds in reading the staff report that there was a change in ownership.
When did that occur?
That I'm not sure.
Okay.
I'll ask it.
There was a 2001 CUP and then a 2009 CUP.
All right.
All right, I'll check with the applicant
when they come up to talk.
Thank you.
Any questions?
Okay.
Thanks, Chip.
I think this may be more for Lieutenant Jower
and then I'll probably have a couple for the appellant later.
You're gonna be up and down a lot, I think.
We were receiving complaints about extensive littering
at nearby businesses next to Spoon Tonic.
We've seen, we've had these that have come
over the last year or two.
Is that still occurring?
present time we have not had any recent complaints of
it happening present time
have you noticed that when you
you were the the police department
go to spuntonic following a call verses when you go to other establishments
you've mentioned retrojunkie and massaize as as examples
you notice anything
different between them is there more on willingness or drunkenness or is any
generally
the same just more
It's been a long time since I responded as an officer,
but my recollection when I did,
it's just generally the same, but more.
It would be the best way to describe it,
because everything was contained inside,
and then you had a packed parking lot,
and when I talk about parking lot,
there's three parking lots.
Sputonic Management would say that it's not theirs,
but they actually use all their parking lots
in the areas during the weekends.
So it's just, in my recollection,
it's just always very crowded.
A lot of the activity during business hours would be inside.
And what I remember is always responding
during closing hours, when patrons are being let out
of the establishment at the end of the night.
So much fewer calls prior to midnight, let's say.
The yes, the calls, 86% of the calls are happening after 11
and more so after 12.
Do they have a metal detector during the...
I don't remember, I wanna say no.
Okay, well I guess we'll hear from the appellant on that.
Yes.
When police have gone, I see security at now
pretty much any kind of a night time establishment.
It might be at one or two people, sometimes it's a lot more.
In the opinion of the police department,
do they have enough security guards relative
to the amount of security guards
in some of the other places, like a retro junkie?
I would say comparative, I would say yes.
Okay, those are my questions.
Thank you.
I'm not even sure to whom to address this.
Is there food service at Spoontronics?
I don't believe there is a kitchen, correct?
OK.
How many people generally are in its maximum 90?
Are they operating only at maximum amount?
Or is it more close to 40 people for an evening, late night?
Do we have any kind of sense about?
I don't know of a survey of their patronage.
So when we start to look into calls for service,
we asked the assistant from code enforcement.
Code enforcement did look into Spuntonic Lounge
to see if they are operating over capacity.
They've conducted walkthroughs
and their walkthroughs concluded
that they were not over capacity.
So they were operating within capacity
during their working hours.
My question, and I'm glad to hear that,
but my question is capacity is 90 people.
Do they almost always have 90 people in there consuming,
or are there hours when there's been flow
in folks attending, or?
I wouldn't know specifically.
Okay, so maybe the owners will answer that.
Thank you.
I think that's all I have right now.
Thank you, I have a couple of questions.
We've compared retro-junkie massays and spoon tonic.
Can you give me the hours of operation
for retro-junkie and massays?
Massays, I believe, they are serving under deemed approved.
Are they 1 o'clock risk?
They are the later serving establishments in town.
So they could be open until 2 AM.
I don't believe retrojunkie can be open till two but I'm not I'm not absolutely
positive. It's not my hangout so I can't tell you. Okay thank you Lieutenant Jower.
The hours of operation for retrojunkie alcohol service ends at 1.30 and the
business close at 2. For Massays alcohol service ends at 12.30 and business
Let's close at one.
The data that you presented if I just want to clarify, we're talking March through December
of 2021, which would be 10 months, January through November of 2022, which I'm not sure
what happened to December, but it's 11 months.
And then January through, it says October 3rd, I'm going to count it as September because
three days in October is about nine months.
So the data that we're showing for 2023
is in fact data only for nine months.
Yes.
When are the bar owner meetings?
Usually during the week at around 12 o'clock.
If I remember correctly, maybe on Wednesdays or Thursdays.
It changes depending on availability of the bar owners, but the bar owners usually put out an email to Kathy Hemingway and then Kathy Hemingway would advise everyone of the time and then we would show up, but it's usually a Wednesday or a Thursday, mostly during lunchtime.
And so, Cathy Hemingway from Walnut Creek downtown
is actually the communicator,
even though the bars that we're talking about,
Retro Junkie, Massays, and Spoontonic
are not in the Walnut Creek downtown district.
I don't know if they are or not.
The, I think I've had my preliminary questions answered.
Okay, thank you. Thank you.
Any other questions?
We are now going to turn to the appellant.
You have up to 15 minutes.
The clock will be set at 15 minutes.
This will be for any representative
of the appellant to speak.
So if you include others, they will be counted
in the 15 minutes and they won't be speaking.
Those individuals will not be speaking
under public comment then, all right?
Thank you.
And what you have to do is talk
when you're at the microphone and not talk
around the room.
Because otherwise the camera recording equipment
doesn't pick up your voice. Okay, how's that? Thank you, great. I'm Michael Biggs. I'm the
attorney for Spoontonic. Good evening, members of the City Council, Mayor and
staff. We're here to find solutions. We didn't have much time last August. My
clients got served the notice and then had ten days and hired me three days
before the Planning Commission. We were unable to gather information, a lot of
So tonight we're going to do a good job,
and we're going to do it in a really tight time frame.
We have a PowerPoint demonstration.
And I want to ask, has anybody not
had an opportunity to read our written appeal?
Because if everybody's read that,
then I'm not going to cover things in there and be
redundant.
I don't want to talk about the police statistics
that much or the crime problem that Walnut Creek unfortunately
faces right now.
I do want to say very gently, politely, and respectfully,
business should not be made to carry the cross of criminals.
There's no business in Walnut Creek
that would go along with that.
But we, Spoontonic, my client, is a member of this community
and is rising up to do what it can to get this problem toned
down as much as they can.
And that's what we're going to focus on in the PowerPoint
presentation.
Jeet will come forward in jazz, and then there's Daniel,
who's going to help with the, would you please come up?
OK, they'll do public comment, but what we want to do
is show the council what they've been doing since then.
Now, I don't know about this public meeting thing.
Jeet was whispering in my ear that he didn't hear of it.
I heard of it months ago, but we've
been focused on the appeal.
Moving forward, I'm sure they'll go to that.
So here it is.
And Jaz, if you come up, this is Jaz Alawala.
He is the son.
How's it going?
Aji?
Is his father?
So let me get this right.
This is actually our property.
It's not what Mr. Griffin told you guys,
But it's upstairs, it's through Indian cuisine.
Their parking lot is not my parking lot.
I have no cameras there, no nothing.
I can't, no security can go over there.
I can't risk my security to go over there.
But I'm, and I can talk to them
in like putting a camera up for like safety,
but that's for future.
And this is how we enter the entire location.
And that's SOS Drive and the neighboring parking lot,
which is the back parking lot of,
sorry, I'm really nervous trying to buy
for my livelihood right now.
But it's Napa and Bug Stove.
This is where my security,
I have five security guards on the weekends,
and two inside, two outside, one's floating.
And this is my property, and they stand right there.
This is their view of the entire parking lot,
the bottom picture.
No, I have a question.
Were the security cameras there before?
Excuse me, you having a conversation with him
is not being heard.
I'm sorry, Madam Mayor.
you don't need to apologize to me but the public can't hear you so oh but I
can't ask the question of him and give this presentation jointly with him I
think so but you're running let me check with the city attorney because you're
you're not putting him on a stand yeah the discussion between the two of them
is part of the 15 minute presentation time okay and either your clock is
running. I know. So in 2021 when some incidents arose I was in contact with
Lieutenant Jower being most of the time and I used to talk to him like 40
minutes like I talked to him like 40 minutes at a time and he told me add
more security cameras which I did and he told me get a metal detector I got a
metal detector. He told me to start charging a cover. I started charging a
$10 cover and he told me increase more get more security guards. I added more
two more security guards and he told me to change stop selling Hennessy. Change
the price of Hennessy. Stop change what the change the music. Play different
type of music so I told my DJ to play different type of music to like top 100
or whatever they play on the radio and still some issues incidents arose but
it's like we only called police assistants when we need it and
And apparently, we call them way too many times.
And I guess we were becoming a nuisance at that point.
According to them, we were becoming a nuisance.
But we were not.
But we weren't.
OK.
OK.
You just.
No, you're nervous.
I know.
I am very nervous.
Thanks, Ed.
Yeah.
You carry on.
OK.
What Jazz wants to convey is he has not
had his head stuck in the sand.
He has been working proactively.
And the lieutenant had spoken that they had had communication.
The problem, in a nutshell, is the time span
to affect positive change is too short.
They have to do a transition.
And it's a small business.
They have to have cash flow.
These small businesses sometimes can be month to month.
So I'm going to have Jaz come back up in a minute here.
And what we're going to do is we're
going to focus on things that they've done since the Planning Commission hearing and
things they're going to be doing in the future.
And what they would like, respectfully, is they'd like time to implement change.
They're going to take a financial beating.
They already are with having the DJ out, but they can't just change in a couple weeks or
a month.
This will maybe put them out of business, because in this type of business, its nature
is late night, not early.
But Jaz, why don't you come back up here, please.
And let's go right to the slide showing what you guys are doing
now and where you guys are going in the future,
because they want to work with the city.
They're not here to fight.
We do take issue with application of the police
statistics.
But right now, we don't want to address that.
We want to find common ground.
Where can we join this business and the city
and meet the concerns of this city?
Jaz, show them what you're going to do
what you've been doing place right here so I added all those cameras for better
view my parking lot the front the patio which I had built and they're pretty
good like visual cameras and my my plan for change is I already talked to this
It's a private security company, to getting an armed, private security guard to patrol
my parking lot and they want a six-month contract.
One of the things that concerns Jazz and his father is if they sign the contract now and
they're closing early, they may not have the cash flow to meet the terms of the contract.
But they'll do this now.
They'll put these kind of guards there.
They want at least five hours daily so Friday and Saturday nights 930 to 2 30
a.m. We're trying to ensure the atmosphere is more of a lounge, more of a
speakeasy with specialty cocktails. Actually thinking of adding a couple pool
tables and more TVs look at the last one shift towards having an environment
that is more attracted to sports and activity rather than dancing we will
accomplish this by having pool tables and more TVs they're looking at changing
their whole business model trying to track the different kind of temperament
of patrons okay now most of the patrons are really good people they're not
criminals and there's people that work here that are members of the community
here who have children and they have jobs here. They all, some of them are here
tonight, they all want to work together to solve this problem. We're not here to
fight the city, we're here to appeal but we're asking for more time to make this
establishment run more in sync with the expectations of the city. Just come back
up. So that is actually our plan.
OK, so as I said, spoon tonic needs more time.
And we do take issue with the application
of the police statistics.
And we're not in a court of law here.
We can't do that.
Nor do we want to be in a court of law.
We just want to meet the city's concerns
and effect positive change.
And Jazz is well on his way to doing that.
But if the conditional use permit
for this type of business, which distinctive business
competence is late night, if it gets rolled back,
they're going to lose customers to other establishments
and that sort of thing.
So again, just to re-emphasize, the long and the short of it
is Spontonic wants to work with the city
to fix the problems that the planning department
and the police complain of.
They just need more time.
It's too short of a leash.
Getting the notice to go to planning department,
having 10 days, going in there, and that sort of thing.
So we hope that you will consider what Jazz had to say.
And what I have to say is they're representative.
And I know you'll be fair and reasonable.
And I'll leave it at that.
And any questions I'm happy to take.
Thank you very much Mayor, Council Member Francois.
Thank you and thank you Mr. Biggs.
Thank you for your team.
And we understand the gravity of the situation.
We understand that people's livelihoods
and businesses are at risk.
One thing that you continue to mention
was the need for more time.
And I wanna push back on that a little bit
Because we had a homicide happen outside your client's
establishment in 2021.
And then I'm looking at the information we have.
And our police department first informed
the owners of this situation a year ago, in October 22.
So why was that not enough time?
That was kind of a full year.
Kind of they were put on notice.
There wasn't a notice of violation
that could continue to operate without any restrictions.
And I know some changes have been made
were still having issues.
So I want to ask, how come that wasn't enough time?
For the shooting or when?
There was a shooting that happened in 2021.
That's major, that's serious.
That was really unfortunate.
I was actually there that night.
And it happened 40 yards away, 40, 45 yards away.
and my security did whatever they actually could.
Those guys, they were kicked out of the bar,
but the other group who shot the guy,
he was never even inside the premises
or inside the bar at all.
You could see that in the police report, which I have,
but the case was dismissed.
everything is, the guys are free.
And now you're bringing that up.
No, I want to focus my question
a little more carefully because what I heard...
But we did make changes.
What I heard the attorney say was that
you don't have enough time.
This just got sprung on you in August
with the notice of the Planning Commission hearing.
That's not accurate, actually.
You got a letter from the city police department.
You got three letters.
one last October 12 months ago you got a letter from the city I talk to him I
talked to him also okay so how come we're still having problems with your
establishment you're asking for more time but if you know there's my question
okay you're asking for more time I'm saying you've already had 12 months how
come there wasn't any improvement then but we did make improvements we only had
like three calls this year. No you've had 11. And one of the calls was for
someone a woman passed out under a car. I'm concerned. That was upstairs parking
lot. My security we closed early and we left the premises. I'm concerned about
the over sale of alcohol. What are you doing about that? Oh we we cut people off.
We tell them drink some water. There have been so many times that I've called
Uber for people. You know, we're making sure that no weapons are coming inside.
We have metal detectors. We pat people down. We check everyone's ID. No one's, no
underage person comes inside the bar. So the woman who is found passed out three
days before the planning commission hearing, what was, was she a patron of your bar?
Which one? The woman who was passed out under a van that was found by the police.
We didn't even know like once he left or what was he doing underneath him?
So was she a patron of Spuntani? Yes she was.
Okay. Um. Was she? You were there that night.
You're not sure? We were, we were told she was there.
I wasn't there that night. I could look at the cameras.
I think that's probably all my questions for now.
Okay. Do you have any questions?
Mr. Francois? Do you have any questions?
In response to your question a little bit more,
Yes, there were those letters, but if you look into the written documents we provided there was back and forth. It wasn't like
The police were being ignored that would be a fallacious premise there was back and forth
It just was not to the police's satisfaction
Apparently, but they want to do what the police want them to do. They just don't want to go out of business at all
Well councilmember Wilk. Did you have a question? I?
I do, but if you want to finish up with your thought.
I want to,
I just want to reiterate again that your client
was given at least 12 months,
an incident happened in 2021 that was pretty serious.
So I would count that as the first warning
that you need to take this pretty seriously.
Something's wrong with this establishment.
But a formal notice went out from the city 12 months ago.
And from what I'm hearing from our police department
our staff is that there weren't really any effective serious corrective
measures taken and now you're asking for more time and I'm saying you've already
been given a lifeline, a couple of lifelines already and there haven't been
any measurable steps taken to change the nature of the establishment. Yes Mr.
Francois. If you know you're asking for an additional extension and I'm saying
What proof do we have that that's gonna change anything that things are gonna be operate in a better manner than they did with?
The two years of notice you had before the answer to your question is within lieutenant Jowers materials
The crime has been going down
in fact the shooting was in 2021 and
If you take a close look at those crime statistics, that's what I'm talking about, you know, we're not in a court of law
I can't go to source documents here
But if you were to look at the we're saying that the police are not applying the statistics
objectively
Okay, a lot of these things in there are the result of regular police patrol operations
For example, most police officers will tell you they love to make traffic stops because they make a lot of felony arrests out of those
That's what keeps the streets and communities safe. It's traffic stops in the Walnut Creek PD
Apparently they've been doing a fantastic job with regard to what I can see what we can see they're doing the best they can
Look granted they could have done a better job in the past
hindsight's 2020
But they're here tonight with good heart and good faith to do what needs to be done to make this run better
And that's why they need more time and they've shown you the things that they're going to be doing and are doing I appreciate that
That acknowledgement and the concession. I think that that's fair that they could be doing a much
better job I would say than they have been and that I have to say though that
in looking at the appeal letter that was submitted there were responses to each
of the incidents and to me they looked they read trying to be somewhat
objectively here like excuses like nope that wasn't us that wasn't on our
property that wasn't our how would we know we didn't make the call so how would
you respond to that?
There seemed to be a lot of excuses being made
versus owning up and saying, we didn't do a good enough job.
We need to do a lot better.
When they're here tonight, and they were here
meeting with the police, I was there two days
before the hearing, and they put material on the table.
That's not an excuse.
And they've done things since then.
So no business can be perfect.
And we live in a challenging time.
And it takes a little time to adapt.
Sometimes it takes time to think things out.
Sometimes you don't arrive at the first right answer.
But they're here, and they're in good faith with good heart
to rise up to the city's complaints.
They don't want that stuff either.
And they've put a serious study on this,
and you've seen what they want to do.
They want to convert it from a.
How did you say that in here, from a, into a lounge?
Into a, a speakeasy, if you will.
Yeah, a different kind of tempo,
a different kind of environment,
a different kind of social scene.
They're gonna need time to do that.
They can certify to the council now
and do anything the city attorney would ask probably
to show that they're doing these things
in concrete fashion, not just talk, if you will.
They're not, they needed some help too, okay?
You've answered my question.
I appreciate that.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you.
Any other questions?
Yeah, thank you.
I will moderate the meeting.
Council Member Wilk, thank you.
I'm sorry, Madam Mayor.
Thank you.
I was a bartender in a previous life,
so I'm familiar with some of how serving
was requested by ownership of bartending.
So I have a question.
I'm not quite sure who would be answering this there.
But are bartenders made aware that if they overserve
customers and they go out and cause an accident,
that the establishment, as well as themselves,
can be held criminally liable?
Yes, they do.
You'd mentioned that during this one serious incident
where a woman was passed out under a car
after having been a patron in your establishment,
that you weren't there that evening.
How many nights a week on average are,
and you and your father are both owners?
Yeah.
Who's the one that's on premise
during the evening now? I am.
Every night?
I'm usually there like six nights,
five, six nights of the week.
And how? I am a single dad.
My daughter is right there.
And how many nights a week are you open?
seven days a week. Okay. Do you notice there are fewer problems when you were
there on site versus when you're not? I was there when the shooting happened.
Understood. But do you notice in general that there are fewer problems when you
are there in person versus when you're not? It's about the same. Like when I'm
not there something happens. When I'm there something happens. You'd be one of
the rare businesses that I've ever heard of that would say that it would be
about the same. But my security, I trust in them, my staff. They're amazing. And I
understand. Yeah. I can make comments later, but that surprises me. Approximately what
What percentage of your alcohol sales after 11 o'clock versus prior to 11 o'clock?
I do have my financial, if you want to look at it, it's, no, but how many percent, like
The whole night, we do.
But sure, but you've got the numbers.
Yeah.
Do you know what your percentage of alcohol sales are?
No, just tell me.
Can you please stay at the platform?
OK.
OK, it sounds like you're not quite sure.
We make about 5,000 on the weekends.
After 11 PM versus before?
About three.
After three, three thousand.
You make more after 11 o'clock.
60 per second.
Okay, thank you.
Is there a dress code?
Not yet.
Have you been asked about putting a dress code in?
Yes.
When were you asked?
I talked to Lieutenant,
when I talked to Lieutenant Jower.
Was that in August or a year ago?
In March.
Okay, and you still haven't?
Okay.
You mentioned there's a metal detector.
How long has that been in place?
for a year and a half.
And it sounds like there's been guns
that have been recovered in the last year and a half.
It was at traffic stops.
All the guns that were that Lieutenant Jower
listed on the report, they're all made in traffic stops.
They were not found on the premises,
either inside or outside.
Lieutenant Jower, if it's not correct, come up.
If it is correct, you can just nod.
So guns were recovered from traffic stops.
The drivers of those cars were patrons of Spuntonic Lounge.
During those days on the traffic stops,
we were operating an undercover operation with outside agencies
to identify those who are coming out of Spuntonic Lounge that
are possibly armed through surveillance.
Okay, is it possible that they have the guns in the car and they left them in the car when
they went inside or did your investigation show that they actually had them inside?
They most likely had them in the cars but on some instances through surveillance in
the parking lot when trunks were open, those patrons leaving, that's when we
would confirm a possible firearm and then we would call it in and the traffic
stock would be conducted. This was an organized operation that we conducted on
five different occasions. Okay, thank you. I think appreciate that. Just just one or
more questions. Do all of your security guards have license issued guard cards?
They're officially licensed issued guard cards. I believe so. Oh yeah. Yes I do. But you're not aware...
Yes I do. You're getting a verify but you're not sure and you're the owner?
I don't know if it's, if they're expired or not. But when I hired him long time ago, they were.
Okay. I was on a police ride along about a year ago when we went to Spoon Time.
I think I met you. I think I met you briefly. I thought it was fairly dim
outside in the front. I just kind of noticed that it was dimmer compared to
some of the other establishments I'd seen. Have you put brighter lights in in
the last year? Yes. Even the Walnut Creek City, they put
streetlights after the shooting that happened.
And my neighboring businesses, Napa and Buckstove, they put floodlights, they put cameras, so
to deter all the criminal activity from happening.
Okay.
Those are my questions.
Thank you.
Mayor Pro Tem?
how likely is it that you would be able to maintain the level of business if you
change to Beak easy which actually brings pictures of the 1920s which is
not yeah not a good thing at all but but you know if you change the tenor of the
bar aura how likely is it that you'll have an attraction to enough people to
justify it. I think having like really good cocktails and good vibe, good atmosphere,
I think we can do it. So I'd like some additional data. Did you
have any additional questions? So can you go back to from 11 to, we'll say 11 p.m. to
1.30 because your last call is at 1.30. So it's a two and a half hour period. Can you
give me an hour by hour of the amount of your sales on a day's sales.
On a daily sales? So if it's 5,000 in a day and you're 3,000 after 11, how much are you after 12?
After 12. And the Planning Commission asked this question. So the answer should be at your fingertips.
After it's 12 it's like we do 60% of our 60% of the 3,000 or so the later it gets
the more you're selling yeah tell me a little bit about your business plan
related first of all the Planning Commission directed you to prepare a
business plan have you prepared a business plan my plan is that's a yes or
question. No. My plan is I told you for my plan for change. You're telling us the
plan. A business plan is a written document of how that outlines what
you're going to do in your business, what you will generate in revenues, what you
will incur in expenses. Billann, am I... and it's a written document that would
ordinarily be presented to someone to explain how you're going to achieve your
goals. Have you written a business plan? No I have not. Okay. Then how do you know,
and I'm going to ask the Mayor Pro Tem's question again, how do you know that you
will be able to basically maintain your business by changing your business if
you haven't done an assessment of the feasibility of it? I think putting like a
pool table or couple pool table it's going to generate income regardless. You're
selling most of your you're making most of your sales not just after 11 but
after 12 is your customer base going to change is that mode of operation that
style of business likely to be consistent with an 11 p.m. to 1 30 a.m.
customer base I think changing the music yeah also during the planning
Commission meeting you indicated you'd be basically shifting away from a DJ to
a different style of music that weekend afterward which would be August 26th and
27th what did you do? For the entire month of September we didn't have a DJ
so our sales were super low because we didn't have a DJ no dancing no nothing
people came, they didn't like, they didn't want to stay, so they left. We
deterred good amount of crowd. The crowd that Mr. Jawa was thinking that it was
undesirable. Okay, I think I've got my questions answered. Mayor Pro Tem. So if
most of your sales are after midnight to 1.30, that means all people are probably
we're drinking many drinks is is you know what level of drinks per person get served
if we see someone who's highly intoxicated we don't serve them we don't even let them inside
the premises okay so so the people who have been to other places yeah or stop at a yeah bevin more
and and guzzle if we see them stumbling and try to come into our establishment we don't allow it
Okay, otherwise it's gonna be a liability. You betcha
What kind of training do you put your your service people through? I know they've gone through the
ABC they're all
ABC certified. Okay. All right. I still back to my original question, which is I'm
Really concerned if you make most of your sales between
12 and 130, and so it's a younger crowd younger crowd
They were attracted to
Having like a DJ. I
Understand. Yeah. So now that we're not gonna have a DJ right? They don't want to they don't want to come but I'm going back to
They're drinking a lot in an hour and a half
In order for you to have the most sales
There is either way more people in your establishment from 12 to 130, or the people who are there
are drinking way too much alcohol way too fast.
Ninety people inside on the weekends?
So she made a comment, not a question, so we'll just let her go at that.
I was trying to explain my question.
Was that a comment or a question?
I was trying to ensure that there was a question that you were answering.
Let's open the public comment period.
We're now going to open the public comment period.
Individuals are welcome to speak for up to two minutes, or if you are a bona fide representative
of a group of individuals, you may have a time of up to 10 minutes, then you can line
up along the window wall there, and the timer is there.
Please be sure to introduce yourself for the record.
Hi, my name is Dulcinea Vilvie and I'm a member of the Spuntonic security team.
I'm the only female security guard that Spuntonic has because Jazz felt it important that he
have a female security guard so that the female patrons that come in there feel more comfortable
about being patted down because it's a security issue.
We need to make sure that, you know, everybody's safe.
So that's one of the things that he did.
I'm also a single mom and I have two kids and this is my second job that I have to take
care of my kids and if we close at midnight I come on at 11 so I'm out of a job, you know.
Sorry.
And this job has provided me the ability to take care of my kids, you know, and I just
feel like we haven't been given the opportunity to show that we're more than willing to do
whatever it takes.
But closing us down at midnight, that it'll ultimately, it'll close the business down.
won't be able to survive it. I am where you're talking about the alcohol
consumption the major majority of our revenue is from 1130 to 130 and that's
because people come in late it's not because they're drinking a lot there
it's because they're coming in they're filtering in you know they've gone to
other places whatever they show up at our place anytime we see anybody who
who looks impaired, we do not allow them in.
If they're impaired in the club, we escort them out.
We don't want people being there overly intoxicated,
causing problems along the creek PD.
That's not what we want.
So thank you.
Thank you very much.
Hi, my name is Madeline McLean.
I'm a part of Jazz's bar staff.
So I heard a couple of things that you guys mentioned,
and one of the things that really stood out to me
is this new business proposal that he has.
From talking to our regulars and kind of seeing things
over the year that I've been there,
I think it's a great thing for us to have these pool tables,
add more TVs, things like that.
It's gonna generate our customers to come and stay
rather than come for a drink and leave and then come back.
Another thing that stood out to me as well
is when these clients come in at 11, 12 o'clock at night,
usually they're out at another place
or something like that.
We are very, very aware of what's going on,
but we do pay attention to those around.
We cut people off, we give them water,
we've ordered Ubers, we've watched them walk out.
Now, where it comes to the problem that I've seen
is some of these people, when we ask them to leave,
will sit in the parking lot upstairs
or move their car just a little bit down
to where we cannot see them.
it's to the point where we've tried multiple ways
to remove them from the situation.
This is why we have called, you know, previous times
to ask for help to remove this situation that's going on.
We don't want these people to be hanging out
in the parking lot.
There's no ins and outs, so we are not allowing them
to drink in their car or to have any opportunity
to, you know, do something that they're not supposed to do.
We are very, we're trying to protect every patron
in that bar, including ourselves,
and this is probably one of the only establishments
that I've worked at where I feel safe with my staff
and with my owner.
And I'm really, really happy to be a part of this team
and I would like to keep that if I can.
So thank you very much.
Thank you for your comments.
My name's Glen Panetta.
I'm the lead security over at Spoontonic.
So I got something written down here.
As a small business in Wanna Creek,
you only wanna help benefit Wanna Creek
just like any other small business does.
We are aware of the undesirable customers and believe me,
we don't want them more than you guys don't want them
because we're the ones you have to deal with them in person.
It's just bad business taking them.
My team and I are more than willing to work with Walnut Creek PD
to help reduce and eliminate the problem,
even if that means stricter house rules.
What the restrictions laid upon us,
It has put a major dent in our operation
and our livelihoods as well.
Our numbers are at all time low
with very few customers at best,
but we do see a golden opportunity in this,
opportunity to rebuild and bring it back to former glory,
which was mainly locals and fellow industry workers.
We only wanna provide a safe place
for people to have fun, have drinks, unwind,
just as all the other bars have done for us as well.
We also firmly believe that with what the media has
told the public, it has reduced our numbers to the point
that it has cleared the problem with the undesirable customers.
If you let us continue to operate with the normal conditions
we have now, we won't disappoint.
We're already on a good path, and we will
make sure it stays that way. I'll make sure on my end at least two though, you
know, I'll go out of my way to do whatever it is need to do. Anyways, thank
you guys for your time. Thank you for your comments. Additional speaker? Good evening,
my name is Melvin August. I've been a patron at Spoon Tonics for a few years
now, quite a while. Mainly I was going there on karaoke nights because I love, I
I love the scene karaoke.
Became really good friends with Jazz and a lot of the people
that are speaking tonight.
And luckily, they lost a karaoke DJ.
And Jazz asked me, hey, do you want a DJ karaoke?
And that was, I've never DJ'd a day in my life.
But it was a way for me to kind of get out and stay out
of trouble and get away from home
if I need to for a few hours and host it.
And it's been a blessing.
It's been a lot of fun.
I know since the hearing in August,
even my karaoke crowd no longer really
exists to the point where I've been doing karaoke for free.
I told them I don't want a dollar just because I enjoy it.
That's what spuntonic means to me.
I understand those Fridays and Saturday crowds sometimes
aren't necessarily the crowds of atmosphere that I even enjoy.
I do know that the bar, Jazz, the entire staff,
is willing to do whatever.
We've talked about it, we've had conversations,
we're throwing around ideas.
No one's written a business plan
to open up the change of business in a few weeks
where your entire model's gonna change.
So when I think when we're talking about more time,
I think that's what we're talking about is
that that crowd is gone.
The time now is to reinvent ourselves.
We have an opportunity to reinvent ourselves
as a business to be a part of the community here
in Walnut Creek.
And I think that's just what we're asking for.
It's just an opportunity to reinvent ourselves,
put our best foot forward.
And then after that, then we've had our opportunity.
So thank you.
That's my time.
Thank you for your comments.
Next speaker, please.
My name is Daniel Zumbo, longtime patron,
and just wanted to reiterate some of the comments that
that were made known jazz for a very long time.
My older brother, when it was his,
he turned 21, he was drinking age.
He called that bar home.
I have for quite some time myself too.
And there are complexities.
There's complexities with COVID,
there's complexities with people being let back
out of the house and trying to understand
how to reintegrate and with the drinking scene
and with the social aspects over the last couple years too.
And I think the city of Walnut Creek's had to deal with that.
The city of Walnut Creek continues
to have to deal with that,
as we're all intimately aware of
at other businesses and venues,
whether that's in the retail sector
or in the entertainment and social sector too.
I think there is somewhat of a focus on spoon tonics
and I would challenge the council members
to look at progress that has been made.
I think it's easy to look at opportunities
that I think are coming full circle
with making new business plans and changes
to be able to better serve the residents of the city.
But it is a problem that doesn't just pertain
to Spoontonics and I think it is in the best interest
of the city council to look at some potential issues
that were brought forth in the appeal process
with some disingenuous remarks as far as the data goes.
As far as these police interactions,
calls for service that are coming from the staff,
whether it's deemed as calls for service
as police doing regular police work by driving by
and seeing something not on premise.
So I just, I would challenge and I hope in my heart of hearts
that you do justice to the information
that's provided in the appeal process as well.
Really look at, obviously there are opportunities
with creating a business plan, adjusting
how to serve the patrons, but also the data.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Are there any other speakers this evening?
My name's Paul Soria.
I don't want to reiterate what went on in the last hearing.
But there's a conditional use permit.
I'm assuming all of you have seen them.
The conditions haven't been met.
The time has been given.
After closing hours, cars get hit in the parking lot on SOS.
There's urination, vomiting.
I said all this last time, but I'm telling you again,
it has happened.
And at one point, it was continuous.
Every weekend, every Friday, Saturday, it would happen.
You'd come there, pick up, we'll have to hose things down,
piss, everything.
I mean, it's ridiculous.
And I know they can't be watching everything.
I mean, just like the police can't be watching everything,
but it happens.
If things weren't as they were, then we
wouldn't have this problem or any of these problems.
So I get it.
I get that they're trying to run a legitimate business.
But what can you do about the surrounding properties?
If my business was having my patrons going over
to their business and peeing or vomiting
or defecating.
I mean, it's happened.
Cars are going over retaining walls and dropping
on upside down.
It's happened once.
And then the other one drove off.
It went over the retaining wall, just over the parking lot.
I'm sure you guys know about it.
I'm sure you guys know about it as well.
Just of course, I'm on the scene.
OK, let's.
Twice it's happened where it's landed on upside down.
I mean, it's just crazy.
After closing hours, I get it.
they can't they can't be monitoring everything I'm sure they don't want
these people around but nor do I you know because they're crazy I mean
they're parting out there the party continues outside during and after their
their business hours and closing hours so again I know they can't be watching
everything but if the business wasn't there we wouldn't have issues thank you
for taking the time any other speakers Madam Mayor City Council
I'm actually here to speak on behalf of this Bluntonic and also
Correct some things that were just said public defecation urination
That is a big issue that we do have here in Walnut Creek
There is a big population of homeless folks
Especially that actually pertain that are next to the public storage that is right across the street. There has been like a
like a squatty-potty, many different things out there, and it's not just happening
right there. It's happening all over. I mean you take a look at what's going on in San Francisco.
When it comes to the business and everything,
putting the dress code in place on Friday, Saturday nights, I've been a patron of this place for well over 15 years and
the prior ownership actually did away with the dress code and
they used to be
collared shirts on the weekends, no open-toed shoes.
It was a great business model and it could thrive again.
Especially that was the way it operated as a speakeasy
and as a cocktail lounge.
It will thrive.
Thank you for your comments.
Does anyone else wish to make public comment?
Then I'm going to close the public hearing, bring it back.
The appellant has five minutes for any comments
you would like to add? Madam Mayor, members of the City Council and staff,
you've heard from many voices. There's lots of issues.
Jazz and his colleagues have expressed their intentions and many things they
have done already and there's more for them to do. But to cut their hours right
at the beginning of the positive change that they're implementing would hurt
them economically to where the business might be mortally wounded and if that
would be the case then it could be said that the business is carrying the cross
of the criminals because ultimately we as individuals can't control the actions
of other individuals unless they break the law and get arrested and that's
That's exactly what the police have been doing a great job doing and there's a lot more work
for them to do.
There's a lot of challenges for the community to face and Jazz and Spoon Tonic want to be
a part of positive change and you'd respectfully ask that you consider all of the information
with the best ability you have and arrive at a fair result which will meet the needs
of the community, that being the citizens and everybody that's part
of the community here, as well as this business.
And the people who work there, who are also a part, they're sincere and mean business
about cleaning things up, and they've shown you that.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
We have one question for you, and I'll check with my other colleagues as well.
Thank you, appreciate your comments.
We heard from a business owner that was in that area talked
about littering, defecation, urination.
We've gotten several mails and calls about this in the past.
I'm curious if the business owner ever met with any
of his nearby neighbors of businesses to discuss this.
It's, Jaz will answer that.
OK.
So Saroor Indian cuisine, which is on top,
every time anybody littered, he came and told me,
I swept the entire area.
And I told my security to go upstairs and make
sure there's no bottles or anything left behind.
And same with Napa.
Same with Buckstove.
They came and told me, there's all this stuff.
Even the Napa owner, he was like, somebody threw up here.
I picked up a bucket of water, and I washed it down.
So you've had open lines of communication with them?
That gentleman over there, I don't know what he does.
I don't know who he is.
He never came up to me and told me anything.
OK.
OK.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
That closes the appellants portion of this hearing
and I am bringing it back to the council for deliberation.
Do any council members have,
well, here's what I'm gonna do.
I think we need a 10 minute break
because we've been at this a number of hours.
So we are going to take a break.
It is 8.30, we will be back at 8.40.
Good evening again and welcome back
to the October 23rd, 2020,
the October 17th, 2023 meeting
of the Walnut Creek City Council.
I did have a couple of questions for Lieutenant Brown
if that would be all right,
or I'm sorry, Captain Brown or Captain Hibbs,
or both of you.
evening, Madam Mayor, council members, Andy Brown.
I hear my brother, Sergeant Silva
might be able to answer this question.
He's not really my brother,
but we have the same last name.
I'm curious to be out the
What issues related to homelessness that we have up on the North Main Street corridor in that area SOS Drive and can you address that?
Or shouldn't I can address that and maybe certain silver has more information
In that area specifically the homeless issue is not
Very extensive if at all
There is there are encampments along the 680 corridor
near Caltrans, that's not our property,
but I know that Sergeant Silva and his team
addressed those issues as well,
but those are far away in distance
from the Spontaneous Lounge location.
Okay, and then we've heard a lot tonight about bar activity.
Can you describe what we're experiencing
as a community, as a whole with bar activity?
Because when we had established the deemed approved
ordinance and policies in 2012, actually I think it took a couple of years to work our way through it,
there was a lot of significant activity late night. How is it today and how does Spoon,
what we see at Spoon Tonic compare not just to Masses and retro junkie but to other bar
activity in town? Yeah I can speak to when we went to the deemed approved process at that time to
to patrol the downtown, required significant resources,
officers on foot in teams of two,
six to eight officers a night between 11 and 2 a.m.
And that was the standard way to address
the challenges that we face due to the over-surfing,
the intoxication, the level of fights.
That was 10, 15 years ago now,
And we don't need to deploy our resources that way,
thankfully, because there's a lot of other things
we'd rather be doing with our patrol officers,
and that is patrolling the rest of the city.
And so the deemed-to-prove status,
the deemed-to-prove process requires all operators
to comply with several standards.
And when those organizations, those businesses
don't comply with those standards, such as Spuntonic here,
that brings us to this process.
Luckily, we've only had to do this process once prior
in recent years, and that was with Corogans.
Any other questions for?
Thank you very much, Captain Brown.
Thank you.
Mayor Pro Tem, did you have a question, or?
I did.
I had a question for one of the attorneys in the room.
And that is, is there a way to structure this
at any agreement so that there are certain built-in
deadlines operate this way for six months
with no calls for service or some reasonable thing?
If you get that, you can earn back a half an hour
of operating time?
Can you build a ladder so that, you know,
there's hope if you can comply, you can get it?
Do you understand my question?
Yeah, I do understand the question.
Any change of a land use determination
requires due process and so in simple terms,
that means it requires kind of a public hearing process
and it requires all of the interested parties
to be able to have an opportunity to comment.
And so if the council were to, for instance,
affirm the Planning Commission's decision tonight,
but you were to say that the city would reconsider
the time constraints in six months or one year,
you could do that,
and you could direct-straff to report back to you,
but that would require this hearing process,
and you may want that to go through the Planning Commission
before it comes to the City Council again.
So that's one way that the council could approach this issue.
Alternatively, if the council wanted to modify what the Planning Commission recommended in
some way, what the council has done sometimes is that you would modify it and then you schedule
a further review of the item at a date certain in the future and then you further consider
it at that point.
So the council really has both of those options,
but understand because it's affecting the CUP process
that does require due process,
it requires any interested party,
be they in favor of a spoon tonic
or someone who's concerned about their operations
to be able to have an opportunity to speak.
Can I ask if, just as follow up,
the due process would be subsequently.
Correct.
I mean, because it's already occurred here.
This has occurred here correct mayor and and it would be required were you to further change
The timing considerations if that if that's what the council wanted to do at some point in the future
Meaning the terms of the operations
Absolutely for Captain Brown
Actually might be for Captain Hibb. I'm not quite sure but we'll find out in a minute
when there is a
call for a
Police call that comes in
late at night midnight 1230 whatever it is how many cars typically will respond
to that? I think it really will depend on what type of call you're referring to
but at a minimum two officers will respond so two separate vehicles if
it's involving if it's for instance a disturbance involving several subjects
multiple units will respond at that time we never want to be sort of outnumbered
as it were if possible. And so on a typical Friday or Saturday night around
midnight how many police vehicles are typically patrolling Walnut Creek? So
Friday Saturday night around midnight we'll say there should be 12 to 15
officers on. That's separate vehicles too? Some will pair up so maybe 10 to 12
vehicles yeah. So a call could take two or three of those vehicles out of
circulation. That's correct. Okay that was the answer. Thank you. Councilmember
Darling, councilmember Francois. Alright councilmember Francois any chance you
would be willing to go first? Yeah well first of all thank you all for being
here and we take this very seriously obviously because there's there's
There's livelihoods at stake, and there are business operators and owners at stake, and
we heard from our police department that we've only gotten to this point with one other operator
in the course of the last 10, 11 years that we've had the deemed approved status.
But that also signifies to me that we've gotten to a broken point in the process, that things
need to be fixed.
And when it gets to that point and it gets to this level all the way up to the city council,
you know, we have a duty to do to protect and serve the residents of our city along
with our police department.
We're looking to be good partners with our business owners.
We're not looking to punish anyone.
We want you to succeed.
We prefer not to show up at your business at all.
And if your business is operated in that manner, we don't.
and you don't have to come here and you don't have to appeal a planning commission decision.
So I think when I look at the whole arc and the history of this, 43 calls for service
over a three-year period, most of those calls for service being after 11 p.m., we had many
of those calls for service extremely serious in my opinion, a track record of our, at least
our police department reaching out to you at least a year ago with one letter
and then two more letters earlier this year that I believe that there was
sufficient time given to make some I think that that should have been a wake
up call you should I think there should have been some pretty substantive
changes being made as of last fall if I got a letter like that operating my
business from the city it would have got my attention and I would have been
changing things immediately. So I appreciate the efforts that have been
made. I think that, you know, staff here recommended an 11 o'clock closing time
which I think would have been justified by the the numbers of calls of service
and the issues we've been having. I think the Planning Commission reached a
reasonable result here. I'm not going to retrade that result. I think we could we
could say 11 o'clock, but I think I'm trying to be fair and to balanced, but
I'm also respectful of the fact that there were prior issues and warnings
given. It sounds like from at least one neighboring property owner, he wasn't
just here today, he's come to us before and raised issues and complaints. He may
not have told you, but he's come to the council and raised those sorts of issues.
that this is serious enough, that we have to make a change to the operating hours.
It doesn't mean this gives you the opportunity to change your business model, to come up
with your plan, to put in the pool tables, to hire the additional security guards to
do everything you told us you were going to do.
And if that happens and you've got a good track record and our police are not a drain
on our police services, then you can come back and apply to change it.
where things stand right now and I it's on the planning commission when we did
this with with Krogan's and it was a very similar situation and it was a
serious situation it's gotten to that point where the system is broken and we
need to take we need to take a significant stand that's not something
that I relished doing but when I ran for City Council and we all did this we took
this responsibility seriously and like I said we haven't done it with other than
one other property owner or business establishment so I was also on the
Planning Commission before the deemed approved status and I saw what the drain
of that was on our police resources so we adopted these standards we expect our
businesses to adhere to them I very much hope that you do I very much hope that
your business survives that you take it this now seriously because this is in
addition to the letters that you've received you're receiving both from the
Planning Commission and the City Council our opinion that yes, you need to change
your operating hours and with that I will be supportive of denying the
appeal and affirming the Planning Commission action. Councilmember Darling.
Again thank you all for coming tonight I know this is a very difficult issue
small businesses are such it is a tough role to be in but I also was on the
planning commission back prior
to the deemed approved ordinance.
And the challenge that we were experiencing that time,
I mean, Captain is not blowing things out of proportion.
Downtown was out of control.
We had numerous other bars that had problems
that we had to deal with on a regular basis.
So that's why we went, and we don't want to go back to that.
That's why we went through
and put in the deemed approved ordinance.
That's why we put in the standards.
That's why we started the bar meetings.
That's why we have the cooperative efforts that we have
to say here are the standards, this is what we expect.
So we're at a point now where I am supportive
of what the Planning Commission decided in their decision.
I think it gives an opportunity to rebuild.
I think the idea of a business plan,
reach out to the Small Business Administration
if you need help with those kinds of things,
use it as a chance to reset.
We're aware of the challenges that you're facing.
It's not lost on us,
but we're all committed to the safety of our city.
And we don't want to see a return
to the kinds of problems that we were experiencing.
And so we need to keep going
with the spirit of the deemed approved ordinance.
and we need to kind of back up
what the Planning Commission said.
Council Member Wilk?
Thank you, Mayor.
So I feel for small businesses.
I've been a small, I own small businesses myself
and as I mentioned, I've been a bartender before.
And what I saw without question was as an owner,
there were far fewer problems in general
when I was on the premises.
I'd have my managers be there maybe once, once or twice a month, because I was working
all the time.
There were more problems.
There just were, because I was more proactive as an owner.
Every single restaurant owner that I have talked to in my time on city council, which
is now at seven years, has told me that their being on site reduces problems at that business.
They see it every single time.
And frankly, Jazz, you're the first owner that I've ever heard that has said it doesn't
matter if you're there or not, that you trust that it's the same.
And as a nightclub, this just simply defies logic and credulity.
It just doesn't compute with me.
Not being sure if all the security guards have valid license issued security guard cards,
I think that's a concern.
It's not a requirement to have it, of course, but it may have helped with problems, but
you didn't know if they had them.
You turned to your head of security to ask them, and you weren't sure if they were expired
or not.
That really is an owner's responsibility to know.
Like the buck stops here, that's what it comes down to.
I really came into this understanding I'd read the reports, I read the appeal, and I
wanted to really hear both sides of here what does the PD say and what does the
owner say and the questions that I asked were specific to see how much you were
dealing with and understanding what was happening in your business and
unfortunately it didn't answer the questions that I had to my
satisfaction and that's a concern to not know off the top of her head exactly
what the percentage of alcohol sales are by the hour when you don't have food you
You just have alcohol?
That's really surprising.
Most businesses know exactly when they're busiest hours.
They could tell you down to the dollar and cent.
You weren't exactly sure what the percentage was on essentially what you're talking about
is five hours of business, nine to two, eight to eight, something like that.
So that tells me that you're just not as much of a hands-on owner as maybe you think you
are or maybe you certainly should be.
changed the dress code when the police department said that's something you
should think about but you didn't do that. When other establishments that have
said there were fewer problems, we even heard from one of your patrons that said
that there were fewer problems when the previous owner had that in place, you
didn't do many of the things that were being suggested including the bar
meetings. I've talked to other bar owners in the city and they said that those
have been really really helpful to have. They established good relationships with
the police department as well with other owners.
They asked for help when needed,
especially if somebody's security guard
doesn't show up, for example.
Didn't take advantage of that.
I'm gonna say something that's gonna sound kind of harsh,
but if I didn't know that there had already been
a homicide nearby, I'd be worried
that somebody would get killed
because there were just these problems.
I heard from several people more than willing
to do what it takes to make these changes.
but you didn't do what you needed to do to take.
You made some, but you didn't do whatever it took.
I'm also concerned about the location of Sputonic.
You can't change that, get that,
but it's off the main street
and it's out of the core downtown area.
And when it requires police calls,
which as we heard often takes more than one vehicle
and sometimes two or three or four vehicles to respond,
those vehicles are taken out of the core downtown area,
which are really needed on Friday and Saturday nights
and out of the neighborhoods.
And so it's vacated those areas to handle these issues
that are happening primarily, it sounds like,
between 11 and 1, 1.30, even 2 a.m.
What's interesting, when I've seen police vehicles
on Locust or Maine because there's an issue
at some establishment or whatever,
even if an establishment hasn't called
and the issue with the police is not right there,
everybody on Locust Street is now, you know,
acting like the teacher's watching them
and they're all behaving well, everybody on those streets.
But when the calls were at Spoontonic,
nobody can see them anyway.
So that doesn't impact positively
the businesses that are around there.
I don't, this came up and I don't know
we can best handle this and this is probably going to be something more in the police department.
I don't want there to be a disincentive for nighttime or any time establishments
to call PD for service. There has to be positive reinforcement that if there's an issue call,
because what I'm really concerned about is if there if the message is don't call police department
because that's going to be now a tally against you, we're not going to get those calls and we're
We're really going to be responding to a much more serious incident.
So I really depend upon our chief of police, our captains, to get that message across
that there are calls that we're being responded to because there's a 911 and there's calls
we're being responded to because an establishment could use a little help and it doesn't go
as a ding against them.
I'm really concerned about that.
That's just a recipe for disaster.
And part of my concern here, we're not talking about closing the business, we're talking
about changing the hours.
I understand there's a lot of sales, I'm sure, that happened between 11.30 and 1.00.
But as my mom used to say, it keeps hearing in my mind, nothing good happens after midnight.
I think there are problems that happen after midnight to 1am.
I think you even said it happens during closing time.
I am concerned that Spoon Tonic closes earlier,
we have to pay attention to those businesses
that might not have had as much of a problem,
and now we're going to have an influx of people
that are coming in there that might have had a drink
at Spoon Tonic or elsewhere,
but I think we're also gonna be putting more people
on the street as well, and that does have a concern for me.
I'm really glad to hear about thinking about
changing up the business a bit, pool tables,
sporting events that would be seen,
although I don't know how many sporting events happen
after 11 p.m., but regardless, that's good to hear.
That's the kind of thing that,
should we see those positive changes, as we've heard?
Come back and appeal and see about moving the hours
to something that we can get back to a point
that helps you to become more profitable.
But my kids are both in their early 20s.
And from what I've seen in the report
And from what I've heard about some of the lack
of directly hands-on, I'm gonna be honest,
I would feel really concerned if one of my kids said,
I'm going to Spoon Tonics tonight.
That's not a reputation that you want.
I love the fact that Walnut Creek is something for everybody
and has nighttime businesses as well.
I really hope that you can be,
that this changes things and perceptions, and becomes a good player in the environment.
And it reduces our police, the needs for police calls and service.
And that we're here in another year, year, whenever it is.
Things have gone well, and you're talking about what you can do to increase hours.
Thank you for being here.
I'm going to be supporting the Planning Commission recommendations as well.
Mr. Pro Tem.
When I first read the report from the staff, I might have even said, God, they should cut
their hours back and stop at 10.
It just sounded like it just wasn't going really well, and it just wasn't getting the
appropriate amount of attention.
I'm at the point right now where I am supportive
of the Planning Commission's recommendation,
but as you could tell from my question,
I believe that this group has the capacity
to overcome a bad reputation,
the actually difficulty of their location
because it's so isolated,
and that if they put their hearts and souls into it,
and hopefully they have enough money to get there,
that they can have the very lounge-like place
that even I would go to in the evening.
But I, like Council Member Francois said,
there were, even if some of the stuff
that the city was trying to communicate with you
who wasn't very clear, there were reasons
why there should have been changes faster and sooner.
And you would not have had that accumulation
of calls for service.
So I'm rooting for you, but I don't see any way
I can not support the Planning Commission's decision.
Last but not least, thank you for your effort this evening
and thank you to the people who came and supported you.
It is, you make a very compelling case
for why community is important.
I am going to be supporting the Planning Commission
and this decision and let me explain why.
Deemed approved is not a right, it is a privilege.
And it's a privilege that gets lost very quickly.
You've had 18 months to two years
during which the behavior of the business
has been unacceptable and what I heard tonight and what I heard when I watched the planning
commission meeting is a lot of blaming it on others. We're not responsible because it's not
all our parking lots. There are other parking lots. Unfortunately when you're a business and this is
the kind of activity you have, part of the deemed approved responsibility is you have to take care
of the impacts of the business, and they don't just
occur inside your four walls.
They occur outside.
And your patrons do not know where your parking lot begins
and the neighbors begins.
They don't see those demarcations.
You have a responsibility to understand
what's happening outside, to keep it from happening,
and to clean it up before you leave the premises
in the middle of the night.
Your neighbor at Buckstove, at Napa Auto Parts,
shouldn't have to come to you on any day
and ask you to clean up the mess
from your patrons the night before.
I'm sorry, that's what you were describing.
If you're telling me that the Napa Auto Parts people
are there at 3 a.m. after you've closed,
getting you to clean it up, then I'm even more concerned
that they feel compelled to be in their business
in the middle of the night.
You have blamed it on crime in general in Walnut Creek,
and I've heard it from your lawyer,
and actually I've heard it from you more.
And I would say if it was a crime in general problem
in Walnut Creek, and I'm not saying we don't have crime,
then we would be having many more establishments
in here with the same problem, and we don't.
If it was a homeless problem,
then we would have the homeless officers
telling us it's a problem.
It's not the homeless.
I appreciate that you have an idea.
the Planning Commission told you on August 24th
to get a business plan and get change going.
And when I asked you tonight,
do you have a business plan, you said no.
When we asked you had you been to bar meetings
and the Planning Commission and the Police Department
told you, has told you repeatedly about the bar meetings
and it was expressed in the Planning Commission meeting
a number of times, you haven't done it.
I know you're disappointed, but there are five of us who have heard you this evening,
and this is, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
If you heard about it on August 24th and you were told it was important, it is your job
to reach out and find out how to fix the problem.
It is not our job to help, to fix it for you.
We can't.
So I will entertain a motion.
Madam Mayor, I'd move to sorry, Madam Mayor and Council, I would just note that the last
recital on the first page of the resolution, which starts whereas the public hearing was
opened and all interested parties had an opportunity to be heard.
It then has a placeholder for the number of public comments and we would just recommend
you enter seven in there for the number of speakers we have this evening.
Thank you, Mr. City Attorney.
I would move to adopt the resolution denying the appeal of the Planning Commission action and affirming the modification of the conditional use permit of
Spoon tonic lounge as modified by the city attorney and I will second that
We have a motion and a second with the roll call vote. Vote. Please be taken
Councilmember Francois Councilmember darling. All right councilmember walk. Hi mayor pro tem haskew
I mayor Silva. Aye motion carries unanimously
And that concludes our meeting this evening.