Encinitas will look into banning all-night businesses from being open from 2 to 5 a.m.<\/p>\n
The proposal, which came at the request of a 7-Eleven franchise owner, was placed on Wednesday\u2019s agenda by Councilmember Jim O\u2019Hara. After debating the concept, the council ultimately voted 4-1, with Councilmember Joy Lyndes opposed, to direct city staff to do more research and see if Encinitas could use other cities\u2019 ordinances as a template when crafting its own business hour limits. The issue will return at a future council meeting for more debate.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mom and dad still say nothing good happens after 2 a.m. \u2026 (and) for the most part they\u2019re right,\u201d O\u2019Hara said as he explained why he was seeking the daily closure period.<\/p>\n
If the city does this, it could reduce crime and create a much-needed, nighttime quiet period in downtown, he said.<\/p>\n
Lyndes said she could support the council sending a letter endorsing the 7-Eleven franchise owner\u2019s request to change his business hours, if the issue is that his corporate franchise agreement currently requires him to stay open 24 hours a day and he doesn\u2019t want to. But, she said, she didn\u2019t support a citywide ban on all 24-hour businesses.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s the city\u2019s job to carve out public policy for one business owner,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Mayor Bruce Ehlers and Councilmember Luke Shaffer also said they had reservations about the proposal. Ehlers called it \u201ca bit of an overreach,\u201d while Shaffer said, \u201cit almost seems to be throwing the baby out with the bath water, a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both men said they would support exploring the concept and hosting another public meeting on the issue. Ehlers suggested that the council hand the topic over to the city\u2019s soon-to-form business commission and Shaffer said that would be a \u201cgood first task\u201d for that new group, but O\u2019Hara said it would be months before the new group was fully operational and he wanted things to move faster than that.<\/p>\n
Councilmember Marco San Antonio, who operates a sign business downtown, said he could see both sides of the business hours proposal and agreed with O\u2019Hara that giving the issue to the business commission could delay things.<\/p>\n
When O\u2019Hara submitted his agenda item request, he included letters from the city\u2019s four business organizations. Most of these letters had September dates and stated that they supported a request by Harbir Virk \u2014 franchise owner of the Moonlight Beach and Cardiff 7-Elevens \u2014 to adjust his store hours, allowing him to close from 2 to 5 a.m.<\/p>\n
One letter \u2014 dated Dec. 10 \u2014 from the Leucadia 101 Main Street Association stated that it supported adjusting the city\u2019s business operating hours on a general basis. It recommended a closure period from 2:30 to 5 a.m.<\/p>\n
At Wednesday\u2019s meeting, there was only one public speaker on the item \u2014 Encinitas resident Fabian Gonell \u2014 who said the city shouldn\u2019t force late-night businesses to close.<\/p>\n
Gonell said there appear to be more than 20 businesses in Encinitas currently open during the proposed closure period, including gas stations, veterinary services, gyms and fast food restaurants. He added that he had researched crime data for the Encinitas region and there appeared to be far less criminal activity between 2 and 5 a.m. than one might expect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Encinitas will look into banning all-night businesses from being open from 2 to 5 a.m. The proposal, which…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3780,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[387,7,4601,23,100,3054,1969,74,84,76,75,1696],"class_list":{"0":"post-149950","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-encinitas","11":"tag-local-news","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-north-county","14":"tag-retail","15":"tag-san-diego","16":"tag-san-diego-county","17":"tag-san-diego-headlines","18":"tag-san-diego-news","19":"tag-top-stories-sdut"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}