This came over the transom yesterday from Garden Grove Councilwoman Janet Nguyen:
GARDEN GROVE CITY COUNCIL AMEND THE CITY'S MUNICPAL CODE TO ALLOW OUTDOOR DINING FOR RESTAURANTS
City Council approved the amendment code change
(Garden Grove) -- Garden Grove Council recently passed an amendment to the city's Municipal Zone Code Title 9 "The City of Garden Grove Land Use Code," Number A-127-06 to create criteria to allow outdoor dining for eating establishments.
The current Municipal Code requires all uses to be conducted within a fully enclosed building and does not provide standards to allow outdoor seating for establishments serving food. Currently there are no criteria or guidelines for outdoor dinning for eating establishments. Without clear guidelines, it is difficult for business owners to bring outdoor dining to the city. Currently, these applications have been evaluated on a case by case basis.
Due to heavy demand for clarification, the city council voted to support the new code amendment. With this new amendment, it will help guide business owners in meeting the city's requirement for an outdoor dining. This will also eliminate unnecessary visits to city hall and help to reduce staffing needs of the city.
"This is long over due for our restaurants in the city," said Councilwoman Nguyen. "We have to eliminate unnecessary hardship on our small business owners and allow them to expand their facilities to meet the needs of their customers."
The first of these modifies the permitted uses section and allows outdoor dining in conjunction with eating establishments in all zones where eating establishments are permitted to be established. The amendment also establishes development standards and operating conditions for outdoor dining facilities:
The outdoor dinning area must be accessory to the Eating Establishment/Restaurant
The seating area must not encroach into any required setback, parking and/or circulation area, required landscaped areas, or required paths of travel
The outdoor seating areas shall have a clearly marked perimeter
"It is hard enough for small business owners to run their business. What we are doing is continuing to make Garden Grove a business friendly city and eliminate unnecessary red tape when doing business with city hall," said Councilwoman Nguyen.
For more information, please visit the city hall at:
Garden Grove Planning Department
11222 Acacia Parkway (near Euclid)
City of Garden Grove
Councilwoman Janet Nguyen, the first woman to serve on the Garden Grove City Council in nearly 35 years, was elected to the Garden Grove City Council on November 2, 2004, coming in first out of nine candidates.
As Steve Greenhut commented on Orange Punch:
The Garden Grove City Council, which generally takes the Eastern European communist model toward development matters, somehow got a taste of the free-market policies tried in Anaheim and has adopted a rule allowing restaurants to offer outdoor dining.
It's votes like this that have earned my respect for Janet Nguyen and the reason why she may get my vote for County Supervisor!
Posted by: Janet for Supervisor! | August 31, 2006 at 10:17 AM
A resolution of the Gang Consortium of Central Orange County:
Whereas, we are engaged in the practice of killing innocents while walking on the street, driving their cars and in their front yards, and
Whereas, we are always looking for new and unique opportunities to kill large numbers of people, so
Therefore be it resolved that, we strongly support the recent action by the Garden Grove City Council to allow line of sight access from the street to dozens of innocent restaurant patrons gathered in one place.
Posted by: Crips, Bloods, et al | August 31, 2006 at 10:38 AM