THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 16, 1995 TAG: 9504140147
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 11 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL REED, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 54 lines
Opening an Oceanfront bar will be tougher than it was now that the City Council has stiffened the rules for prospective operators.
On Tuesday the council unanimously and without discussion voted to require applicants to obtain use permits before they can sell alcohol over the counter.
The restriction is limited largely to the resort commercial district, which has RT-1, RT-2 and RT-3 zoning classifications.
Up to now any commercial establishment along Atlantic or Pacific avenues or the side streets could be converted into a tavern or bar, as long as the operator obtained a state Alcoholic Beverage Control license.
To obtain a use permit, applicants must shepherd their requests through an often tortuous and lengthy process that begins with the city Planning Department, continues through Planning Commission scrutiny, then ends with City Council consideration. A misstep at any point along the way could mean a rejection.
Applicants now must pass muster by assuring the city that they will not disturb ``the tranquillity of the area.'' This means they must make every effort to curb noise, traffic and parking overflow and litter. Prospective operators also must promise to curb loitering and crowds gathering at their entrances or in their parking lots.
A violation of any of these conditions could result in the revocation of the use permit.
The permit sanction was initiated by Councilman Linwood O. Branch, who represents the Beach Borough, as a way of limiting the proliferation of oceanfront bars and of taming late night lawlessness at the Oceanfront.
Branch and other resort business operators have been behind a move to seek stricter ABC enforcement of the Oceanfront taverns. In a Circuit Court appeals hearing last November for The Edge, a bar in the 2000 block of Atlantic Avenue that was about to lose its liquor license, Branch testified that ABC enforcement had been lax at the Oceanfront.
Privately Branch and some other resort merchants said they were concerned that more bars were cropping up in small streetfront properties that had formerly operated as T-shirt or souvenir shops.
The Edge, which was owned by Virginia Beach resident Alex Asercion, was forced to close last winter when its ABC license was revoked on the grounds that Asercion had failed to meet the liquor-to-food sales ratio required by state law. An appeal is still pending in the state's Intermediate Court of Appeals. by CNB