Angelo's Pizzeria in Pomona accused of ignoring deal

POMONA - Angelo's Pizzeria will be the subject of an evidentiary hearing next month.

The City Council this week decided to schedule the hearing for 5 p.m. Jan. 25 in City Hall after receiving a staff report that the establishment's owner has failed to meet a number of requirements he agreed to abide by in October.

After listening to witnesses for the city and for the business owner, the council will decide if it should modify, suspend or revoke Angelo's modified conditional-use permit.

City representatives and Jason Abboud, the owner of the business at 135 E. Second St., reached a deal in October on a modified conditional-use permit.

The council approved the permit on Oct. 19. Council members also decided to revisit the matter this month, 60 days after the modified permit was approved.

Abboud had 11 requirements to meet within time spans as short as five days and as long as 30 days, the staff report said.

Among the requirements the report says he has not complied with are:

- Signing and submitting a certificate of compliance that says he understands the conditions of approval set in the modified permit.

- Apply for an entertainment permit, which must be renewed annually. The application must include seating arrangements and floor plans.

- Upgrading lighting at the front and rear entrances.

- Meeting with police monthly.

As of Monday night, Abboud had complied with one requirement, said Mark Lazzaretto, the city's community development director.

Abboud had 15 days to remove a stage and obtain a permit for another the city allowed to remain. Lazzaretto said that permit was taken out Monday - about a month late.

Roger Jon Diamond, Abboud's lawyer as of Monday, said Tuesday he is seeking to have two conditions set in October reversed.

The conditions are "the most onerous," Diamond said.

One calls for prohibiting admission to people under age 21 after 10 p.m.

The other condition Diamond seeks to have reversed is the hour of closing. Angelo's must close at 2 a.m., but others establishments are allowed to remain open until 4 a.m.

"They set a hearing but we also want a hearing," Diamond said.

People ages 18 to 20 should be able to go to Angelo's, Diamond said.

"It's really a terrible situation," Diamond said, adding that such regulations impose a huge burden on his client.

"We have to see why the city is putting the screws" to Abboud, Diamond said. "We're talking about a legitimate business, an Italian pizzeria."

Diamond said his client has run his business responsibly and that allegations of disturbances are out of place because they didn't occur at Angelo's.

The city can only object to one thing, he said.

"The only quibble is he pulled permits late," Diamond said.

But that's not how city officials see it.

Angelo's began drawing the city's attention after it was granted a conditional-use permit in 2007 to serve alcohol and have entertainment.

As time passed, the business drew complaints that it was attracting crowds that exceeded its capacity and that there were fights that required the response of more than a dozen police officers.

Pomona representatives brought the city's concerns to Abboud's attention this year. Negotiations to address the matters started in June.

The staff report said the restaurant no longer has a nightclub environment.

Abboud said at the meeting that the conditions he is required to work under are making it hard for him to draw customers and have cost him tens of thousands of dollars.

Councilwoman Paula Lantz, who made the motion to proceed with a hearing, said Tuesday she did so based on the list of requirements Abboud has not met.

"That to me is symptomatic of the problems we have had over the last year or two," she said.

It took a year and a half of pressing the security concerns before Abboud made changes, Lantz said.

Now he is not complying with other requirements he agreed to, even though he was given the time and reminded he had to comply, she said.

"The idea was, if we give him a couple of months he'll come around," she said. "I'm not sure he's interested in coming around."

Instead the message that is coming across is that Abboud has no desire to comply with the agreement and is demonstrating "disregard and disrespect for the rules he has agreed to abide by," Lantz said.