The Seal Beach Planning Commission this week approved a permit allowing Finbars to sell alcohol. The restaurant, which closed its Seal Beach location in 2013, is reopening in the Regency Center (home to Pavilions) in the space once occupied by Radio Shack.
The restaurant will be open until 10 p.m., seven days a week.
Deb Machen, the commission’s vice chair and Old Town representative, said she was concerned by the initial proposal that would have had Finbars open until 11 p.m., Sunday to Thursday and until midnight Fridays and Saturdays.
She said she was pleased when applicant Joseph Barbara agreed to change the hours. Machen said that she was concerned because people seldom order food from 9-10 p.m. and that would have essentially made it a bar.
Planners discussed saturation of liquor licenses in the neighborhood. Machen said the neighborhood is not part of the Main Street Specific Plan area and is held to a different standard.
According to Machen, there were now five liquor licenses in the neighborhood. “Basically, we’re right at saturation point,” Machen said. She said one thing that the Planning Commission considered was the fact that during the 20 years Finbars was in Seal Beach, there were no police calls to the establishment.
Old Town residents living near Main Street recently expressed concern that the city was allowing too many liquor licenses in the area. For results of an unscientific online Sun News poll on liquor licenses in Seal Beach, see page 4.
