Brewery Looks to Tap Longer-Term Use Permit

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Brewery Looks to Tap Longer-Term Use Permit
Hops to It: Co-owners Ting Su and Jeremy Raub at their Eagle Rock Brewery.

Being first can sometimes have a downside, a lesson the owners of Eagle Rock Brewery believe they’re now learning.

When it opened five years ago, it was the first new brewery to open in Los Angeles in decades and helped pioneer a new generation of craft beer makers in the city. But because it was the first, city zoning officials were extra meticulous in the conditions they included in granting the brewery a five-year conditional use permit.

Among those conditions: the requirement for an extra – and costly – public hearing three years ago.

Now Eagle Rock Brewery’s permit is up for renewal at a Nov. 6 public hearing – the third hearing in five years. With each hearing costing the brewery roughly $8,000, its owners understandably don’t want to have to go through this again for a long time. But they are concerned city zoning officials might decide to renew the permit for only five years.

Brewery co-founder Ting Su believes her company is being singled out just because it was first. She said she’s heard that some newer craft breweries have not had any expiration dates on their permits, while others have longer 10-year terms.

“We are like the oldest kid: We face the strictest rules,” Su said.

Particularly galling for her is that the brewery must pay for a hearing despite drawing virtually no opposition from nearby residents or businesses. There’s been just one protest, filed five years ago by an absentee landlord of a nearby property; no one else since has called for the permit to be revoked.

Indeed, according to assistant city planner Nora Dresser, who works in the zoning administrator’s office, no one has yet filed any protest to the pending permit renewal.

Dresser said her office has not made any recommendation for how long Eagle Rock Brewery’s renewed permit should last. That decision is solely at the discretion of the zoning administrator, she said.

As for whether Eagle Rock Brewery is being singled out with a shorter-term permit, she said terms vary on a case-by-case basis.

“It is difficult to compare the conditions of approval for businesses across the city because those conditions reflect very site-specific issues,” she said in an email to the Business Journal. “The conditions of approval for Eagle Rock Brewery reflect concerns associated with this use at this specific site.”

It’s worth noting that the brewery is close to homes and a middle school. Another local brewery, nearby Golden Road Brewing, is surrounded by other industrial properties.

As for that second public hearing in 2011, Dresser said the hearing was stipulated in the original 2009 operating permit, to determine whether the brewery was complying with the operating conditions set forth in that permit.

One local land-use attorney said such second hearings are fairly common, though not universal.

R.J. Comer is a partner in the Brentwood law firm of Armbruster Goldsmith & Delvac who has helped dozens of restaurants, nightclubs and other alcohol-selling establishments get permits. He said that cities often call for a second hearing to make sure conditions are being adhered to.

‘Kabuki theater’

Comer also said it’s common for cities to place five-year expirations on permits for alcohol establishments, although he said he has seen some permits with 10-year expirations.

“Most cities have these provisions to protect themselves: They are a failsafe to take a look at compliance issues,” he said. “Cities don’t have the staff to routinely look into every conditional use permit, and waiting until complaints come in is not the best policy.”

But Comer did say that in most cases, especially when there are no complaints from the community, “these hearings are little more than kabuki theater.”

Given this, he said, it’s easy for cynics to pounce on this as merely a way for cities to generate thousands of dollars in fees.

“I can understand why Eagle Rock Brewery might feel it’s being singled out,” he said. “But in reality, they are not being treated all that differently from others. The problem is with the overall permit renewal process. The permits really should be permanent – unless there is a demonstrated poor compliance record or substantial complaints or opposition from the community.”

Brewery co-owner Su agreed, saying she and the two other owners – including her husband, Jeremy Raub – want the city to grant a permit renewal with no expiration date.

“To our knowledge, there’s absolutely no community opposition to us,” she said.

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Howard Fine
Howard Fine is a 23-year veteran of the Los Angeles Business Journal. He covers stories pertaining to healthcare, biomedicine, energy, engineering, construction, and infrastructure. He has won several awards, including Best Body of Work for a single reporter from the Alliance of Area Business Publishers and Distinguished Journalist of the Year from the Society of Professional Journalists.

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