Critics Taking Saw to Chains

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Critics Taking Saw to Chains
Endangered Species?: Chain stores at Malibu Village shopping center in a 2013 photo.

Chain stores in Malibu are under attack again.

Last year the Malibu City Council considered limiting the amount of space chain stores could occupy to 50 percent of a retail center. That plan died, and now chain store opponents are proposing even harsher restrictions.

They’ve gathered signatures and are asking the council to put a measure on the ballot as soon as possible calling for chains to be restricted to 30 percent of any retail center. The individual chain stores would have to be small, and the limits would apply to new projects and existing shopping centers.

If passed, the initiative apparently could result in some stores being forced to move as their leases expire.

The City Council last week commissioned a study to analyze the restrictions proposed by an organization called Save Malibu. The council is scheduled to continue discussion on the proposal at its next meeting June 23.

Developers were reticent to speak on the record about the proposal, but Mark Persson, executive director of the Malibu Chamber of Commerce, said the organization opposes the restrictions because they would lead to vacancies if landlords couldn’t rent to chains, limiting their options.

“We’d like to see our shopping centers as full as possible,” he said.

The Save Malibu group is led by actor and political activist Rob Reiner, a local resident, and the signatures have been presented to the city clerk for verification.

Felix Schein, president of Rally, a public relations firm with offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco representing Reiner, said the group tried to create a balanced initiative that would be fair to shopping center owners and developers but also allow Malibu to maintain its seaside character.

“The citizens of Malibu are concerned about development in their community and the initiative is designed to be a vehicle to give them a voice in their community,” Schein said.

Troubled history

The controversy began in 2006 with a proposed ordinance to limit chain stores throughout the city. At the time, a councilwoman complained about Starbucks and other formula stores that sprouted up throughout the city. That attempt didn’t gain traction.

Five years later, the idea was revived after a new owner tried to evict a flower shop in the Trancas Country Market in West Malibu. At the time, hundreds of supporters signed petitions and held rallies to save the business. The eviction didn’t proceed, but the controversy gave rise to renewed concern about retail in the city, including the prevalence of chain stores.

Last year’s proposed city ordinance would have restricted chain stores from taking more than 50 percent of the space at shopping centers in the Civic Center area, the main commercial zone in Malibu. The council took no action on that proposal.

The Reiner initiative is even more extreme: It would cover the whole city, not just the Civic Center area. And it would prohibit new chain stores of more than 2,500 square feet, or about the size of a Starbucks coffee shop. It also would require a conditional use permit – permission from the city – for new chain stores less than that amount. The new initiative would limit the amount of space chain stores can take in a shopping center to 30 percent. Schein said existing chain stores could stay until their leases expire, then file for a permit.

That apparently means some stores could be kicked out of shopping centers as their leases expire.

However, the restrictions would exempt grocery stores, pharmacies, gas stations, banks and other businesses categorized as “essential services.”

Sources last week didn’t say which shopping centers may be most affected. Some have few chain stores, but others do have several. Malibu Village, for example, is home to such chains as Sephora and Banana Republic.

Backers of the restriction believe the initiative should be on the November ballot, but technicalities could force it to the next scheduled election, April 2016. However, Schein said Save Malibu would renew a signature drive to call for a special election before that rather than wait.

“We won’t wait until April 2016 to vote on this. We will get the signatures again, Schein said. “No doubt in my mind that we would get them.”

The initiative also calls for a citywide vote on any mixed-used development of more than 20,000 square feet, a notion that Persson at the chamber dismissed as impossible because a developer couldn’t invest in a project with the risk of having it killed at the ballot box.

Michael Koss, owner of Malibu Country Mart at Cross Creek Road said he has already limited chain stores to less than 30 percent of the leasing of his stores, but noted that was by choice.

Koss, whose center has 67 tenants on 6 acres, said he doesn’t believe the voters should control where people shop.

“There is something anti-American about people in a small community deciding what stores people can shop at,” Koss said.

The Civic Center area is already full of high-end stores that hardly resemble that of a seaside town, he said.

“They’re not trying to protect what it is,” Koss said. “They’re trying to protect what it was 25 years ago.”

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