SJB say approval of fast food chain won’t come without a
fight
When San Juan Bautista citizens opposed the state placing
animated characters in an historic adobe last month, they likened
it to something as preposterous as a fast-food restaurant invading
town. What would be a more absurd or vivid analogy in the
1800s-theme town?
SJB say approval of fast food chain won’t come without a fight
When San Juan Bautista citizens opposed the state placing animated characters in an historic adobe last month, they likened it to something as preposterous as a fast-food restaurant invading town. What would be a more absurd or vivid analogy in the 1800s-theme town?
Times, apparently, are changing. Quickly. A fast-food restaurant has made an application for a license to operate in town, and city officials, who’d rather not have it, say they are powerless to stop it.
It’s not a McDonalds or a Burger King, but to many locals the opening of a Subway Sandwiches spells ruination for the historic hamlet, where food is a draw and meals, such as the changing menu and gracious hospitality at The Faultline or the zesty enchiladas at Doña Esthers – with a side of mariachis – are events.
Many assumed that the town’s strict zoning and code ordinances prohibited fast food chain joints from locating in San Juan Bautista. It’s probably because no chain business exists in the mission town, aside from the old-fashioned Unical gas station on the east side by the cemetery – away from the business district.
But, in fact, there is no such ordinance on the books.
“There is nothing you can hang your hat on,” said City Manager Larry Cain, who said he pored over the local law books twice. “Everybody assumed there was, and even I had always heard there was an ordinance. But there’s only a reference in the General Plan to not wanting them.”
Within the next several months Subway Sandwiches would like to move into a space at the Windmill Plaza on the Alameda and Highway 156, the closest thing San Juan has to a strip mall – but a rustic one at that.
The San Juan Planning Commission will hold a public hearing on the issue on Jan. 7, where commissioners will hear testimony regarding Subway’s request. The applicants of the franchise are Matt and Yvette Papenhausen, who are the proprietors of Subway in Hollister on McCray Street. The one in San Juan Bautista will be their second franchise, and the owners are confident it will foster a strong local following.
“I don’t think we’ll get too much resistance from the locals,” said Yvette Papenhausen. “I think once we’re there they’ll be satisfied. Were going to try to fit in.”
Papenhausen said the reason they are opening another Subway’s in San Juan is because she has a group of customers who travel from the small town to Hollister just for her sandwiches.
“If the locals don’t want me there because they think I’m going to ruin the decor of the town, well, Subway isn’t going to do that,” she said. “But if they think I’m going to ruin their businesses with competition, the fact is I’m just giving people another food choice.”
In the meantime, some local residents are mounting their opposition over fears it will adversely affect the town’s charm and damage local existing businesses too small to compete with a chain.
“We really don’t want any chains in here,” said Bonny Cornaggia, who along with her husband owns the Golden Wheel Antiques on Third Street in the Downtown Historic District. “We feel like if they let one in, then more will come.”
“It’s an issue with San Juan,” said Patricia Wimenan, operations manager of Paul Davis Restoration. “If you talk to the other shop owners they’ll tell you we all have to follow strict ordinances.”
Paul Davis Restoration is an emergency repair service company that handles fire, smoke and flood damages in buildings. Wimenan said that on Nov. 1, after leasing from the owners of Windmill Plaza for five years, her company was told to leave the space so that Subway Sandwiches could take it over.
Jim Gibson, co-owner of the Windmill Market and Plaza, said money had nothing to do with the decision. The owners, said Gibson, would like to see more retail and service businesses in the plaza, which he believes would attract customers to all the Windmill shops.
“Subway Sandwiches could go into the Historic District if they wanted to,” said Gibson. “There is no way they (the opponents) could legally stop them. This town desperately needs a national tenant.”
When local slow-growth advocate Rebecca McGovern learned of the plan, she scrambled to City Hall in an effort to track down the phantom ordinance. McGovern and Cain, often on the opposite sides of issues, cut an odd picture as together they shuffled through hundreds of pages of local laws to determine if chain stores are forbidden.
Cain said that without a regulation, if the city denies Subway’s application to locate at the Windmill Plaza, San Juan could get sued.
“The city has to make its decision based on the law,” he said. “If it wants to regulate those types of chains, then it has to pass an ordinance.”
That could take up to two months because such a new law would not qualify as an “emergency ordinance” – though some would vehemently disagree.
“What’s next, Wal-Marts?” said Shari Ross, owner of the Pizza Factory franchise in the Windmill Plaza. The new Subway will be their next-door neighbor.
“I don’t think it’s going to hurt us as bad as the other businesses,” said Shari. “But you can’t get into competition with a big chain.”
Gibson believes critics of the fast-food lunch chain are being unduly provincial.
“They act like virgins,” said Gibson. “This place can’t put a bubble around itself. They want to pretend it’s 1882. That’s fine. But that’s an expensive pretense.”
Cain summed up the debate as a matter of taste.
“It’s like San Juan chickens,” said Cain. “Some people like them, some people don’t.”
Which gave Cain another idea for a fast-food eatery.
“Maybe we should open a Kentucky Fried Chicken,” he said.
