Hit the brix
Owner says harassment by the city — and not the faltering economy — forced the closure of his gastropub
By André Coleman , Kevin Uhrich 08/05/2010
On July 17, Brix 42 pub and brewery in Old Pasadena became the latest of a number of local businesses to tank.
But Brix 42, so named for its address, 42 S. DeLacey Ave., didn’t fall victim to the faltering economy or a lack of customers, as have other restaurants. In fact, business was pretty good there until the week before the place was shuttered, with people lined up outside waiting to get in.
What co-owners Mark Kim and his brother-in-law William Lynn say forced them to close was the city, which through its inspectors and police officers allegedly harassed Kim, Lynn and their customers, costing the pair loss of potential revenue and $1,500 in fines.
“I am really disgusted with Pasadena right now,” said Kim. “They wouldn’t let us have people line up outside and they tried to force us to let all ages in, which was a violation of our liquor license.” Further, Kim said, “The city wanted to dictate how much alcohol and food we sell. They said we have to sell 50 percent alcohol and 50 percent food. The police would come at 2 a.m. and ticket people for jaywalking. They would just come and ticket people and leave.”
Neither cops writing jaywalking tickets in Old Pasadena nor seeing yet another business vacate those premises is anything new. Brix 42 is just the latest in a number of businesses operating at that location to close after relatively short stints. Jerry’s Famous Deli, Pause Restaurant, Union Cattle Co., Dena House and Brix all failed to make it at the location since Brignole’s Fitness — operated by pro bodybuilder Doug Brignole — closed in 1993 after being in business there since 1984.
Brignole, who still competes, said he doesn’t know why the other businesses could not make a go of it in the cavernous converted turn-of-the-last-century livery stable, but noted the area’s chronically bad parking situation, which he said was responsible for him closing his gym.
“When I started, Old Town was just beginning. I think what killed us was the parking. People expected free parking at a gym,” he said. “A lot of people would just park for free on the street and then the city came along and put in parking meters as far as the eye could see. We wanted to validate parking, and the city offered to allow it at a discounted rate, but it would have been $13,000 a year. Members would call us from their car phones and say they had been circling the structure looking for parking, but couldn’t find anything, so they quit the gym,” he said.
If parking was not a problem for Brix 42, it was a major issue for everyone else doing business there, according to City Councilman Steve Madison, whose district includes Brix. Although the city-owned parking lot directly across the street from the building offers 90 minutes of free parking, it fills up fast. Anyone lucky enough to get a spot pays $2 an hour after the first 90 minutes, up to $6 maximum.
“I think parking is a big part of the issue with the location,” Madison noted. “On the weekends, the parking lot fills up pretty fast and there is very little on-street parking on that street. The key to success there is quality. It has to be a place that people want to go to, because it doesn’t have the advantages that businesses on Colorado have.”
To that end, Brix 42’s moderately priced food and drink had gained mostly favorable reviews, both in the Pasadena Weekly and its sister monthly magazine Arroyo, as well as a number of Web sites hailing Pasadena’s only brew-pub.
In recent years, other nearby restaurants — Twin Palms and the Daily Grind, also located on South DeLacey Avenue — have been forced to shut down due to the sagging economy. But not Brix 42, which, according to Kim and city officials, literally had customers lined up out the door.
So if Brix 42 wasn’t having that much of a problem with parking, is what Kim says true? Was the city overly zealous in regulating codes, and ultimately responsible for running an otherwise successful restaurant out of business?
After Jerry’s Famous Deli closed in 2000, a number of other restaurants came and quickly went, including Pause and the Union Cattle Co., which also had problems with the city similar to those experienced by Kim. They, too, were operating like a nightclub without permits to allow dancing, which is what brought Brix 42 to the attention of Pasadena Code Compliance Manager Jon Pollard.
According to Pollard, Kim and Lynn were violating their conditional use permit (CUP), which contained 33 conditions, including prohibition of dancing. The permit also called for allowing in people of all ages. Another condition required the establishment to serve food and function as a restaurant during all hours of operation.
“Code compliance went out to that location on several instances,” Pollard said. “We certainly don’t pick on people or harass anyone. Our purpose is to ensure that there are no detrimental conditions that impact the public’s safety. The intent of the permit was to have some guidelines relative to alcohol sales, because the business is actually a restaurant.”
Although Kim and Lynne did not have a dance permit, they were allowed to host live entertainment.
Brix is certainly not alone in closing. All told, 15 percent of the city’s restaurants are up for sale, according to a recent survey of local commercial properties conducted by John Alle Co., a commercial real estate broker based on South Lake Avenue. But all the while that is happening, Pasadena is becoming very renter friendly, according to the survey. The vacancy rate for commercial retail buildings is 16.5 percent and the vacancy factor for warehouse space rose from 14 percent to 18 percent — well above the 9 to 10 percent that favors tenants.
“In the coming months, several huge blocks of office space are expected to come onto the market. Almost 175,000 square feet are expected to hit the market,” which will add to the “1.5 million square feet of office space [that] became available” in the past 12 to 18 months, states the survey. As a result of this glut, “Monthly rents that averaged $3.15 to $3.45 per square foot during 2007 and 2008 are now in the $2.15 to $2.35 per square foot range,” the survey states.
“A lot of the challenge for businesses in spaces like [Brix 42’s] is they are so big and pretty expensive, so they have to be able to weather a long period leading to profitability,” said Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Paul Little. “It is a very big restaurant space and the economy is just not very good. Competition is very steep, there are a lot of choices and start-up costs and the mortality rates for restaurants are very high.”
Kim sees himself as a victim of the city. “The line was there to control the crowd,” Kim said. “Every restaurant has a line outside. Once you hit capacity, you have to stop people from coming in. We only had a 250-person capacity and I have to check identification or I would violate my liquor license,” which is issued by the state.
Kim said that when he complained about the rule against customers lining up outside his business so his employees could check their identifications to make sure they were old enough to drink, he was told by the city to let in “all ages.”
In the end, “I cannot fight the city,” Kim said. “I just don’t need the fight.”
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