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By Lookout Staff

February 6 – The Planning Commission Wednesday night will consider recommending that interim ordinances regulating alcohol licenses and the placement of merchandise on sidewalks be made permanent.

In one action, the commission will consider recommending that the City Council adopt an amendment permanently authorizing businesses on Montana Avenue and Main Street to display merchandise in private vestibules.

The ordinance also allows businesses across the city to place furniture, portable landscaping and cigarette disposal receptacles within the public right-of-way.

Since its adoption in 2003, some 40 merchants and restaurants on Montana Avenue and 20 merchants and restaurants on Main Street have taken advantage of the provisions, according to staff.

Code Enforcement officials have responded to and resolved some 60 violations of the ordinance, most of them for merchandise being in the public right-of-way, staff said.

The measure is designed “to create greater variety for pedestrians and thereby enhance the pedestrian experience, generate broader interest among pedestrians to explore the commercial establishments, and enhance the economic viability of Santa Monica businesses.”

The ordinance, which is set to expire on April 29, requires that businesses obtain a license from the City if they leave the landscaping outside when they are closed.

In a separate action, the commission will take up an ordinance requiring that restaurants and other establishments that serve alcohol obtain alcohol CUPs if they go out of business for a year.

Since it was adopted in 2003, the ordinance has been extended three times. Under the measure, the time period for establishments in the Main Street Commercial District would be six months.

Unless extended, the ordinance is set to expire on May 24.

While there have been 20 CUP applications for alcohol service since the Interim Ordinance was adopted, all of them have been for new outlets, according to City staff.

Although a new CUP for outlets that have closed has come up “infrequently,” staff said the ordinance is needed.

The ordinance “allows the City to better regulate the complex interrelationship between the availability of alcohol, the consumption of alcohol, and resulting community problems.

“The ordinance also allows the application of operational conditions to alcohol CUPs, which protects properties surrounding the outlets from potential impacts such as noise, trash, and concentration of alcohol uses,” staff wrote.