No more Deja Vu
shadowcat
Atlanta suburb
The sign outside the Deja Vu strip club in the Montclair[CA] area with the long-standing motto "Hundreds of Beautiful Girls & 3 ugly ones" must go, but the club can stay, the San Bernardino County Planning Commission decided Thursday.
Well, the strippers have to go, too, but the establishment can now serve alcoholic beverages and operate as a comedy club/sports bar.
It was a compromise the club's owner was unhappy with, said Alicen Wong, an attorney representing Deja Vu's parent corporation, Tollis Inc.
The commission voted 4-0, with Randy Coleman absent.
The club has until Nov. 2 to cease stripper activity at the club as part of a nearly 10-year-old legal settlement between the club and the county over the club's location.
The club long ago did away with its kitschy Pepto Bismol and lime green-colored exterior as part of the settlement agreement, repainting the building white with brown trim. It also razed its neighboring pink motel, which charged by the hour, and replaced it with landscaping per terms of the settlement.
But the county agreed to let the club operate as an adult entertainment venue with no alcohol sales until Nov. 2, 2012.
With the deadline looming, Tollis Inc. applied for a conditional-use permit to operate DeJa Vu as a sports bar and comedy club and to sell beer, wine and hard liquor.
The county Planning Commission approved the permit, but with conditions.
The club must replace
it's 34-foot-tall sign, which was determined to be erected without a permit and illegal, with a 25-foot tall sign.
In addition, the club must remove all animated and multicolored lighting from the building's undersides or make all such lighting white.
Wong, who asked the county Planning Commission on Thursday to allow the exterior pylon sign and lighting to remain intact, declined to comment after Thursday's public hearing.
Montclair City Manager Edward Starr said the city will appeal the commission's decision to the Board of Supervisors.
"We've already had a conversation with our city attorney and let her know we plan to move forward on this," Starr said Thursday.
The commission's action came after a more than 20-year battle between the club, the county and the city of Montclair over the club's location on the northwest corner of Mission Boulevard and Central Avenue, a heavily traveled east-west corridor the city has targeted for major infrastructure improvements and development in the last decade.
Though Deja Vu sits on an unincorporated patch of county land, it is within Montclair's sphere of influence. And there's nothing more the city wants than to see Deja Vu disappear.
Montclair Community Development Director Steve Lustro said DeJa Vu has deterred commercial and residential development in the area. He said a planned commercial development across the street from the strip club was killed when prospective tenants inspected the area, saw the club and decided against doing business there.
The same thing happened when The Olson Co., a Seal Beach-based residential developer, toyed with the idea of building a subdivision of single-family homes on a 5-acre parcel on Mission Boulevard, east of Monte Vista Avenue, he said.
Marketing consultants for the company visited the area, saw Deja Vu, then discouraged the company from building, Lustro said.
Lustro acknowledges he isn't sure if Deja Vu operating as a sports bar/comedy club will have the same effect.
"By converting the use over to a bar, from a future development standpoint, I don't know what effect that will have," he said.
The city has invested heavily in the area over the last 15 years with its Mission Boulevard Streetscape Improvement Project that began in 1998.
For years, Mission and Holt boulevards served as bustling east-west corridors for commuters from Los Angeles to Palm Springs. A plethora of motels, bars and strip clubs sprouted as a result, Lustro said.
The opening of the 10 and 60 freeways diverted traffic from Holt and Mission boulevards, and the areas fell into disrepair.
Many remnants of that era, including Deja Vu, still exist, Lustro said.
So the city launched its street improvement project in 1998 and began its last phase of improvements between Central and Benson avenues earlier this year, Lustro said.
But it hasn't been easy, and Deja Vu remains, Lustro said.
"I still have code enforcement chasing some recalcitrant property owners who don't want to get on board with the program," Lustro said
Well, the strippers have to go, too, but the establishment can now serve alcoholic beverages and operate as a comedy club/sports bar.
It was a compromise the club's owner was unhappy with, said Alicen Wong, an attorney representing Deja Vu's parent corporation, Tollis Inc.
The commission voted 4-0, with Randy Coleman absent.
The club has until Nov. 2 to cease stripper activity at the club as part of a nearly 10-year-old legal settlement between the club and the county over the club's location.
The club long ago did away with its kitschy Pepto Bismol and lime green-colored exterior as part of the settlement agreement, repainting the building white with brown trim. It also razed its neighboring pink motel, which charged by the hour, and replaced it with landscaping per terms of the settlement.
But the county agreed to let the club operate as an adult entertainment venue with no alcohol sales until Nov. 2, 2012.
With the deadline looming, Tollis Inc. applied for a conditional-use permit to operate DeJa Vu as a sports bar and comedy club and to sell beer, wine and hard liquor.
The county Planning Commission approved the permit, but with conditions.
The club must replace
it's 34-foot-tall sign, which was determined to be erected without a permit and illegal, with a 25-foot tall sign.
In addition, the club must remove all animated and multicolored lighting from the building's undersides or make all such lighting white.
Wong, who asked the county Planning Commission on Thursday to allow the exterior pylon sign and lighting to remain intact, declined to comment after Thursday's public hearing.
Montclair City Manager Edward Starr said the city will appeal the commission's decision to the Board of Supervisors.
"We've already had a conversation with our city attorney and let her know we plan to move forward on this," Starr said Thursday.
The commission's action came after a more than 20-year battle between the club, the county and the city of Montclair over the club's location on the northwest corner of Mission Boulevard and Central Avenue, a heavily traveled east-west corridor the city has targeted for major infrastructure improvements and development in the last decade.
Though Deja Vu sits on an unincorporated patch of county land, it is within Montclair's sphere of influence. And there's nothing more the city wants than to see Deja Vu disappear.
Montclair Community Development Director Steve Lustro said DeJa Vu has deterred commercial and residential development in the area. He said a planned commercial development across the street from the strip club was killed when prospective tenants inspected the area, saw the club and decided against doing business there.
The same thing happened when The Olson Co., a Seal Beach-based residential developer, toyed with the idea of building a subdivision of single-family homes on a 5-acre parcel on Mission Boulevard, east of Monte Vista Avenue, he said.
Marketing consultants for the company visited the area, saw Deja Vu, then discouraged the company from building, Lustro said.
Lustro acknowledges he isn't sure if Deja Vu operating as a sports bar/comedy club will have the same effect.
"By converting the use over to a bar, from a future development standpoint, I don't know what effect that will have," he said.
The city has invested heavily in the area over the last 15 years with its Mission Boulevard Streetscape Improvement Project that began in 1998.
For years, Mission and Holt boulevards served as bustling east-west corridors for commuters from Los Angeles to Palm Springs. A plethora of motels, bars and strip clubs sprouted as a result, Lustro said.
The opening of the 10 and 60 freeways diverted traffic from Holt and Mission boulevards, and the areas fell into disrepair.
Many remnants of that era, including Deja Vu, still exist, Lustro said.
So the city launched its street improvement project in 1998 and began its last phase of improvements between Central and Benson avenues earlier this year, Lustro said.
But it hasn't been easy, and Deja Vu remains, Lustro said.
"I still have code enforcement chasing some recalcitrant property owners who don't want to get on board with the program," Lustro said
10 comments
So when they say that developers were going to build residential units there but as soon as they surveyed the area they decided not to, let me assure you it probably had little to do with the Deja Vu. They probably looked at the area, said WTF???, hopped back in their cars, and got out of there as fast as they could. There are old scrap metal junk yards in the area, freight train tracks, boarded up stores, used car lots, hookers, gangs, empty lots because nobody can get a business to survive there, etc.
On the other hand, that club has always sucked, so good riddance. Though as the article states, a bunch of years ago they bought a tiny, nasty little motel that was next door. According to the article they rented it out by the hour, so I'm wondering if the club used it for their customers to get extras. Excellent idea, right next door, pretty convenient. Though I doubt it, because it really wasn't an extras club. Though I haven't been there in many years, so maybe I'm out of date.
Since about 1990, all I can recall is a total of three strip clubs on the two streets mentioned: The Strip Joint in Pomona, and Deja Vu, are both on Mission Blvd./Ave. Baby Dolls in Pomona, which closed about 2006, was on Holt Ave., just east of the SR-71 fwy. I wouldn't call three strip clubs between two jurisdictions (city of Pomona and San Bernardino County) a "plethora." (Although Holt. Ave. through Pomona was a known streetwalker lane.) If any L.A. members know of more strip clubs than those that were previously located on those two streets, I'd like to know.
But what's worse is it was bad nasty, not good nasty. At least if some of the strip clubs were decent that would be okay, but most of it was/is crap.