The Seal Beach Planning Commission will hear a request from the Starbucks coffee shop chain to open a new drive through shop in the Regency Center Parking lot on Wednesday, Aug. 7. The 24-hour Pacific Coast Highway coffee shop would be built in the former location of the Daily Grind, a coffee shop that went out of business.
Rob Jahncke has launched a petition drive to oppose the Starbucks application for a conditional use permit. Jahncke owns the Javatinis Espresso on Main Street and is Treasurer of the Seal Beach Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors.
According to Jahncke, he opposes the Starbucks because he wants to preserve Seal Beach’s small town way of life.
“Seal Beach has a local flavor and I feel that this kind of takes away from that,” Jahncke said.
He called Seal Beach a treasure.
“Seal Beach is what all of (the) California coast used to be,” Jahncke said.
Jahncke said he is working with Bogart’s Cafe, a competing coffee shop, to oppose the Starbucks permit application. He also said he is hoping to get three or four other businesses to join him.
So far, Jahncke had gathered 114 signatures on the anti-Starbucks petition as of 12:31 p.m., Monday, July 29.
He also said he would bring up the matter of the Starbucks at the next Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors meeting.
According to Jahncke, Seal Beach already has a parking problem and the new drive-through Starbucks would only add to the problem. According to the anti-Starbucks literature on display on the counter of Jahncke’s shop, the chain would have too much impact on traffic and parking and would be a “drive by” business that does not add to the community. (The literature accurately points out that there is already a Starbucks inside the Pavilions store in the same shopping center.)
Jahncke said he first suspected that a Starbucks might be coming to Seal Beach when he called the Regency Center shortly after the Daily Grind closed. At first his call was not returned. By the time he was able to speak with a Regency representative, he was told they were already negotiating with another client.
“I never even got a chance to present an offer,” Jahncke said.
Jahncke’s peition is encouraging residents to attend the Aug. 7 and Aug. 21 Planning Commission meetings.
Jahncke said he has asked that the public hearing be continued until Aug. 21.
However, Community Development Director Jim Basham said that decision belongs to the Planning Commission.
The permit hearing has been advertised, as required by law, for the Aug. 7 meeting. Basham said he and his staff can’t continue the hearing.
The Planning Commission members could decide the issue Wednesday night, Aug. 7, or they could continue the public hearing until Aug. 21.
As a matter of law, both the applicant and the general public would have 10 days after the commission makes its decision to file an appeal with the City Council.
Basham said he had received probably three emails requesting that the Aug. 7 hearing be continued. He did not know how many his staff had received.
If all this seems familiar, it should. The Starbucks chain tried to open a Seal Beach shop in a former Burger King restaurant in 2000.
The City Council rejected the request in September 2000. The opponents then, just as the opponents now, saw the chain as a threat to Seal Beach’s small town lifestyle.
