Chipotle Shakes Off Council Bruising to Seek City Beer License

By JOHN HARLOW | Editor-in-Chief

The Village fast-food restaurant Chipotle, having failed to win the support of the Pacific Palisades Community Council for plans to sell beer, is pressing ahead with its ABC alcohol license application to the city of Los Angeles.

And it may be only the first of many such establishments to brush aside concerns expressed by a small but powerful faction that remains determined to hold the line in a society that apparently cannot fully enjoy food or a movie without a drink in hand.

Over the next few weeks Vintage Grocers, the key tenant at Rick Caruso’s Palisades Village project, will be seeking one of seven alcohol sale licenses laid down in the master plan for the enterprise.

But because the Malibu-based grocer wants to sell up to 1,200 different wines, it has already attracted the attentions of anti-alcohol campaigners.

They are registering objections to Vintage’s plans to open between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m., which is similar to other supermarkets such as Gelson’s and Ralphs in the Village—far fewer hours than Vons in Castellammare, which is open between 5 a.m. and 1 a.m.

Objectors have told the office of City Attorney Mike Fuere that Vintage should not open before 10 a.m. and close earlier in the evening.

The city is expected to look at the Vintage application at 4:30 p.m. on Sept 6 at the Henry Medina building at 11214 Exposition Blvd in west Los Angeles.

The Chipotle application, #578172, is also expected before city lawyers over the next few weeks.

An application to sell booze, whether beer or a “full” alcohol license, is always fraught with unexpected perils, and it’s not cheap—starting at $80,000.

The community council has been caught between skeptics, who have long delayed an application to sell beer at a revamped Shell station and roiled a Chipotle presentation seeking PPCC approval by painting an alarming picture of teens pilfering beer, and others (including some PPCC members) who merely want a drink with their burrito.

The subsequent furor, where PPCC leaders have admitted their powers as a voluntary rather than a city-funded organization were limited, has raised questions about whether it is the forum for such discussions.

It was created in 1973 when there was only one place to drink in the formerly-Methodist dominated Palisades: The House of Lee, now Pearl Dragon.

There are probably six more applications from the Caruso development on the way to test the council’s influence on the town’s emerging drinking culture.