By Fernando Alcantara/Garden Grove Journal
Garden Grove residents who have yearned to take their singing from the privacy of their showers to a live audience will get a chance thanks to a planned unit development amendment that was passed Tuesday night.
The owner of On The Rocks Bar and Grill on Valley View Street in Garden Grove requested the amendment to allow for karaoke and live music via a two-piece band.
In the Bridgecreek development just north of the Garden Grove Freeway, only restaurants that “have a ground floor storefront that faces Valley View Street” will be allowed to have live entertainment.
Josh McIntosh, a Garden Grove resident and musician, decried the city’s lack of live music venues.
“We don’t have a lot of options in the city when it comes to night life,” McIntosh said. “A lot of people don’t even consider Garden Grove as an option when it comes to an evening out on the town.”
The city council also approved a one-year agreement between Garden Grove and the Arab American Council that allows the group to hold their Arab American Festival at Village Green Park the weekend of Sept. 28 through Sept. 30, this fall.
The three-day festival that includes carnival rides, food and vendors has been held at Village Green Park since 2001.
Village Green is located at Main and Euclid streets near downtown.
The most recent agreement with the city was a four-year agreement that lasted from 2007 through 2011.
The Arab American Council will reimburse the city $7,500 for police support and any other costs incurred as a result of the festival.
I certainly hope that the city will amend thier current, limited stance on live entertainment. If we have no establishment offering live entertainment then potential customers will be forced to spend their money in other cities. The city wants our bands to have no more than two members. I like Simon and Garfunkel a lot but even they had back up musicians. They also make it hard for a business to hire a dj or karaoke. There are no night clubs in GG where dancing is allowed. This is crazy. The tavern and restaurant owners need to organize and make a formal request to amend the city code.
This is roughly what I said at the council meeting:
I’m before you tonight to speak about the live entertainment laws in the city of Garden Grove. First on my behalf, as an entertainer myself, I have found that it is really hard to find work In Garden Grove’s neighborhood bars and alcohol serving restaurants. When I saw our daily news article in the OC Register yesterday I knew that I wanted to be here tonight and to say my part. I don’t want you to think that this is just about me and my part of this, but more of how it affects the larger picture.
I would love to have more gigs and perform as much as possible but unfortunately, I’m restricted on the most local, immediate level. It’s a shame because as a person who strongly believes in buying in Garden Grove, I make less money and have less to spend at our local businesses. That trickles down to the business owners financial problems and next thing you know, we could have another vacant storefront.
The small businesses we have deserve some help from the city, especially in this long term recession. I believe that the city has set up too many limitations, too many restrictions and also too much of a financial burden upon the people who are trying to run their businesses and make a living here.
There are many establishments in the city which have been denied the right to allow amplified or live music to be performed. We don’t have a lot of options in this city when it comes to night life. Unfortunately for us, if we wanted to actually dance somewhere, we would have to leave the city. There are a lot of people who don’t consider Garden Grove an option when it comes to an evening on the town and our current system has a lot to do with that.
Our bars and restaurants could be getting the money that is going to another city because we made it too hard on our local businesses to offer any entertainment.
We should be in a position to offer the people who go out on a date or out with their group of friends, the chance to hear some live music, or dance to the DJ, or sing a little karaoke, in Garden Grove. It would also be nice to have our Gem Theater back up and running, offering us some entertainment in the evenings. I’m sure it would bring back some customers to our Main Street. Essentially, if we continue to limit our possibilities and stay this course, we’re going to continue to limit people buying in GG.