Live music may be a thing of the past at Panama Joe’s in 2nd Street if the City Council votes to deny the establishment’s entertainment permit.
A letter prepared by the owners of Panama Joe’s responds to City Staff and Long Beach Police Department’s recent recommendation of denial of the 2nd Street restaurant and bar’s entertainment permit renewal.
The document was submitted in advance of tonight’s City Council hearing on the issue and refutes many of the Department’s claims about the establishment being a problem for law enforcement, citing errors in LBPD’s incident analysis techniques. It then urges the council to re-approve its permit for Entertainment With Patron Dancing.
Panama Joe’s main concern is the Department’s accusations that a large number of arrests in the last few years have been directly attributed to the restaurant’s late-night bar customers. In addition to noting that the LBPD memo did not find any residents within a 100-foot radius that disapproved of the entertainment license being renewed, Panama Joe’s letter also goes into great detail to show how the Department’s incident analysis was flawed.
“The LBPD Memo refers to two crime analyses that cover a two-and-a-half year period,” it states. “We have never been cited for over intoxication or underage drinking during that time period…Note that while the LBPD Memo to you [councilmembers] goes back to December 14, 2009, the incidents it reported to us start in April 2010. However, this Council renewed our Entertainment Permit in April 2011, so presumably any incidents before that were not grounds for denial.”
The letter claims that of the 37 incidents reported to them by the LBPD from April 2, 2010, 21 of those attributed to Panama Joe’s occurred away from the restaurant’s premises, with many being “beyond our reasonable control.”
Fourteen of these arrestes were DUIs, for which the owners filed a public records request with the City to obtain documents that directly attributed these DUIs to Panama Joe’s. Nothing was furnished to them.
“Without some way to test or confirm the accuracy of the LBPD’s attributing a DUI to Panama Joe’s, it seems unfair to use a DUI as basis for denying our renewal of of the Entertainment Permit,” it states.
Attached to the end of the letter is a summary of all incidents cited in the original LBPD Memo, with details of each prepared using LBPD data and Panama Joe’s own Manager’s Incident Logs, which are themselves almost as detailed as police reports. Aside from most of the DUIs—information for which was unavailable—and nine drunk-in-public arrests for which there was no manager log, the rest of the incidents are accounted for, even described down to the “big Hispanic family fued” that yielded no arrests.
The summary attempts to show Panama Joe’s in a light different than the drink-til-you-puke reputation it and other 2nd St. establishments have received, noting that all of the Drunk in Public arrests in the vicinity of Panama Joe’s occurred when the patron was either being kicked out or denied entry because of intoxication.
But of course there are portions of the summary that are still unsavory for Panama Joe’s—such as the drunk-driving arrest of an employee after work on August 25, 2011 and the single violation of its license, a call from the Alcohol and Beverage Commission for “buggy bottles.”
No less than four letters were also submitted from Belmont Shore residents in advance of tonight’s Council vote also recommending Panama Joe’s permit denial. One letter—from a couple living on Appian Way—was sent in support of the business, saying that “they had heard so many complaints and issues with the restaurant Panama Joes…[but] since the ownership change in 2009 and the with the help of the Entertainment Permit put in place by Gary DeLong and city management, these issues have vanished.”
The City Council votes on the matter tonight.