Taco Boy owner on ZBA vote: ‘I’m done’
Zoning panel shoots down low-traffic drive-thru request for local eatery
Robert Baltierrez let out an audible gasp after a zoning rules committee voted to reject his application to set aside restrictions to allow him to continue operating a drive-thru at Taco Boy.
“I’m done,” he said. “I just put my property up for sale. I’ve been in this town for 50 years. I hate to leave it this way.”
Baltierrez had asked the city to allow him to operate his low-traffic drive-thru at 804 S. Mission St. with a reduced minimum amount of space for traffic waiting to order after being told by city staff in August that it didn’t meet requirements under the zoning ordinance.
It went before the city’s zoning board of appeals last Wednesday night along with a proposal to waive zoning rules about screening the drive-thru area from Fancher
Elementary, which abuts the property.
It failed on a 2-2 vote, with a majority required for passage. The fencing request passed unanimously.
The two commissioners who voted against it — ZBA vice-chairman Peter Orlik and commissioner Corey Friedrich — both opposed reducing the amount of space in large part because the variance is
attached to the property, not the business.
Voting in support were ZBA chairwoman Lara Reisanen and commissioner Steve Stressman.
At least one business previously located at the building operated a drivethru along the back, which Baltierrez said he thought meant he was within city rules to do so, too.
The drive-thru window would have remained grandfathered into the city’s zoning ordinance, said Brian Kench, building inspector, but once it ceases its violating use for a year it loses that protection.
Baltierrez reopened drive-thru service in response to the COVID-19 pandemic orders closing in-person dining. It was, he said previously, a matter of life-and-death for his restaurant.
With a Delta-driven surge and what could be an Omicron-driven wave on its way, he said he’s been advised by health department inspectors that another lockdown could come. The drive-thru is again a matter of life-and-death for his restaurant.
Taco Boy’s drive-thru differs from what is imagined as drive-thrus in the city’s zoning ordinance in two ways.
The first is that it isn’t a two-station drive-thru, with one where a customer puts in an order and a second pick-up station. Taco Boy customers pull up to the window, place their order and pay and receive their food. The transaction usually takes less than five minutes, Baltierrez told the ZBA.
The second is that Taco Boy is primarily a dine-in restaurant. The drive-thru’s traffic is usually no more than four or five cars. When there’s more than one, people waiting for food are asked to pull ahead.
Because of that, there are rarely more than four or five cars in line, he said.
Stressman said that the act of ushering cars waiting for food forward extended the traffic space in his mind. Whereas normal drive-thrus the food pick up is the end of the line, at Taco Boy he would define it as somewhere near the middle.
Orlik said that the zoning ordinance doesn’t respect differences.
“The zoning ordinance does not have two separate requirements, one for chain operations and one for independents,” he said. “It’s a 200-foot stacking length for safety regardless of who happens to be using the building.”
While the motion to recommend approval didn’t receive a majority of votes, neither did a motion to recommend denying the motion. That also failed on a 2-2 vote.
The ZBA is listed as having six members, one of whom — Brian Assman — was recently appointed to fill a vacancy on the city commission. Another ZBA commissioner, Aaron White, was absent.
Stressman asked that since there wasn’t full attendance if Baltierrezz could bring it back next month. Orlik told him that is impossible since zoning rules require a year to pass before a business owner can bring the same request back before the board.
“Can you show me in the ordinance where it says COVID,” Stressman said.
Orlik called that a red herring.
Supporters of the drivethru posted a petition supporting it to Change.org late last week. By Monday, more than 1,000 people signed it.