The restaurant currently has four tables and eight chairs, and shares six parking spaces with its neighbor, a salon, said Dermegerdichian’s son, Tomik. Without the exception, Healthy Bites would be in noncompliance.
The City Council on Tuesday discussed the possibility of allowing dozens of restaurants like Healthy Bites to install tables, benches and chairs by reducing the number of required parking spaces.
“I have run into people who tried to open a 400-square-foot coffee place or something like that and were thwarted because they had 3 1/2 parking spaces and couldn’t get to four,” said Councilman Dave Golonski, who supports a citywide study of restaurant parking regulations.
The rules are the same regardless of the restaurant’s size, occupancy or type, and are considerably higher than those for retail and office uses, which are 3.3 and three spaces per 1,000 square feet, respectively, said Senior Planner Tracy Steinkruger.
Take-out restaurants, under city rules, do not have to provide as much parking as their dine-in counterparts, she said.
Burbank officials on Tuesday proposed a ratio of three spaces per 1,000 square feet of floor space for spaces 2,000 feet or fewer, or another amount determined by the council.
“We’re talking about a dramatic reduction, and I am not so sure I would just say, ‘the office-use parking would prevail,’” Golonski said. “It’s finding that balance of being flexible and allowing for the adaptive reuse of those sites without having a restaurant use consume the available parking for everybody and further diminish the ability to get other retail use because there’s no parking.”
Currently, every food server is considered a restaurant. The council at a future meeting is expected to reevaluate that definition, potentially making the ordinance more specific.
The city gave the Dermegerdichians three months, from February to May to remove the tables and chairs, after which the family would need to pursue a parking variance at a cost of $1,700.
“We’re already not doing so well, just getting by month to month,” said Tomik, whose restaurant serves a mix of Mediterranean, Persian, Armenian, Greek and American food. “We never know what’s going to happen, what the future holds for us.”
Nor does Pizza Al Forno owner Manvel Tovmasyan, who said he hopes to add tables to his 1,100-square-foot pizza restaurant on Burbank Boulevard.
“The neighborhood comes to me and complains that they want to sit and eat a slice of pizza,” he said. “I’ll do much, much better if I got the tables and chairs.”
CHRISTOPHER CADELAGO covers City Hall and the courts. He may be reached at (818) 637-3242 or by e-mail at christopher.cadelago@ latimes.com.
