By:Doug Miller
Specifically, a cellular phone company, AT&T Wireless, will petition the board to allow the construction of a tower atop a West Beach Street building. The board rejected a similar request by T-Mobile in the spring.
And the board is open to deciding the fate of another overly long bar by another out-of-town restaurateur looking to expand onto West Park Avenue. Nick DÕAngelo, who owns a successful eponymous restaurant on Sunrise Highway in Merrick, has applied to take over the site of the former Thai Basil restaurant and the adjoining barbershop. He seeks variances for off-street parking Ñ the plans include zero, while the code requires 50 Ñ and for a 30-foot bar, which has raised some eyebrows.
Corbin & Reynolds drew the ire of city officials and several neighboring establishments when the owners installed a 30-foot bar after being granted a variance for a 20-foot bar. The city code forbids anything other than a 10-foot service bar without stools. The city sued to close down Corbin & Reynolds, but relented when the owners agreed to seal off 10 feet of it by installing a window on top of it.
But the hurt feelings persist for many in the business community. Billy Romm, owner of BillyÕs Beach Cafe on West Park, announced that he was resigning from the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce because it named Corbin & Reynolds the 2004 Merchant of the Year.
After Barry Levine, the attorney for the George Martin Group, DÕAngeloÕs parent company, made his presentation to the board, Romm and others reminded the board that the 10-foot law exists for a reason, and Romm said that if the city is going to continue issuing variances, it might as well scrap the law. Ò[Corbin & Reynolds] danced all over you guys,Ó Romm said.
Attorneys for Corbin & Reynolds told the city during their application process that they interpreted the variance to mean a 20-foot bar in addition to the 10-foot service bar allowed by law. It was a gray area the city hopes not to revisit.
ÒYou need to understand that 20 feet means 20 feet,Ó Zoning Chairman Rocco Morelli told Levine. ÒNot some ambiguous meaning of 20 feet.Ó
Just as fuzzy is the cityÕs power to fight off another application for a cellular tower in the West End. Last winter, T-MobileÕs application to build above retail properties near Florida Street was rejected after neighbors complained that the tower would send waves of radiation almost directly into a neighborhood playground.
However the likelihood that the city will fight these projects for long seems unlikely. State courts have ruled in the past that cell towers are necessary parts of the communityÕs infrastructure, and can not be banned simply because of aesthetic reasons or because of a communityÕs fear of them.
