Garden Grove : Council Rejects Law on Guards at Some Bars

An ordinance that would have required bars with frequent crime problems to hire security guards has been voted down by the City Council.

Council members said the law might discourage bars without security guards from calling police.

The ordinance would have required guards to be on duty at any business that served liquor and had an excess number of police calls in a three-month period.

Mayor John Cannon said the ordinance was not specific enough. “It did not distinguish between calls from angry neighbors or from an owner trying to run a good business. There was no distinction between sizes of places,” he added.

Under the ordinance, a guard would have had to be on duty if any of these four criteria were met: the number of calls rising by 20% from one quarter of the year to the next; the number of calls exceeding the number from other businesses within that district by 50%; the business accounting for 20% or more of the total calls from that district, and the business being within 200 feet of residential zoned property.

The council voted 4 to 1 against the proposal, with Councilman Ray Littrell favoring it, and then voted unanimously to direct its staff to seek alternatives. One suggestion was to issue conditional use permits to establishments that sell alcohol and to require a guard if a crime problem exists.

Cannon said the ordinance was proposed to curb problems at several bars in the city where a number of disturbances have taken place.