Restaurant or nightclub?

Recently Mozambique Restaurant opened in Laguna Beach in the old Tortilla Flats location. Tortilla Flats had been closed for a few years, and we neighbors were looking forward to a nice business to improve the decaying building and parking lot.

We were happy when Mozambique bought the building and began to fix it up. We were hopeful when they applied for their conditional use permit speaking of “community,” a “family restaurant” and “nice adult entertainment.”

What we got, however, was a Las Vegas-sized restaurant and a destination nightclub. is now requesting modifications to the original permit to expand late-night hours, entertainment and seating.

Laguna Beach residents who might want a large, upscale restaurant nearby instead of having to go to Fashion Island or the Spectrum might be surprised at the negative impact of Mozambique on our town. During peak weekend hours, and some weekdays, the hundreds of cars that circle the area looking for parking goes on nonstop. Valets shuttling cars to and from off-site parking spots increases the chaos around the residential streets surrounding Woods Cove. The parked cars of the nightclub patrons line the streets nearby.. Why is our city planning commission approving a nightclub or a restaurant masquerading as a nightclub in our residential areas? We continue to hear that the number of DUI’s is increasing tremendously in Laguna Beach. I can’t imagine that our planning commission’s mission is actually to create more drunk drivers circulating on our streets. The guy who fell in the front of our house at 10:30 p.m. one night, as his girlfriend helped him into the driver’s seat while screaming obscenities, could impact any of our lives by causing a car accident.

We now have had street fights, car-keying, front-door urinating, front-yard sleeping, street-vomiting and about 10,000 cigarette butts. . It doesn’t make sense that restaurants with nightclubs are being approved in our residential areas.

The message should be clear. Laguna Village and Woods Cove residents do not want any more nightclubs in our residential areas. . In its conditional approval of Mozambique’s liquor license, the ABC stated that the Woods Cove area “presently exists an undue concentration of [liquor] licenses.”

It should be the responsibility of the city to protect our neighborhoods and citizens. I am respectfully appealing to the Laguna Beach Planning Commission to guide Mozambique to the original approved concept of a friendly, family restaurant.

Ed Todeschini is a 25-year Laguna Beach resident.