Taco Bell withdraws plans for new restaurant

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By JANE MCCLURE

Taco Bell 1Taco Bell’s food fight with the St. Paul Planning Commission isn’t over yet, even though restaurant owner Border Foods has withdrawn its plans for a new restaurant. The commission’s Zoning Committee meets Sept. 10 (as the Monitor is being delivered) with city planning and Department of Safety and Inspections (DSI) staff to review compliance of the existing restaurant use with standards, conditions and permits.

The meeting isn’t a public hearing, but it’s likely a few of the restaurant’s neighbors will be on hand to hear what, if anything, can be done about what many contend are problems with late-night and early morning noise and patron behavior in the restaurant’s drive-through service. An after-bar-closing-time crowd has been blamed for loud noise and disruptive behavior. Some of the behavior has wound up on YouTube.

A restaurant has stood at 565 Snelling Ave. since Zantigo opened in 1973. At some point a drive-through window was installed, although a conditional use permit was never issued. Nor can city staff find proof that building permits were ever obtained before the window was installed. With no conditional use permit, the city never had a chance to restrict operations.

The original fast food restaurant was issued a conditional use permit, but it lacks conditions. St. Paul requires fast food restaurants to have such permits; all drive-through uses must have separate conditional use permits.

Taco Bell is on a site that was rezoned for traditional neighborhoods use, over Border Foods’ objections. That rezoning was done as part of long-range land use planning along the Green Line light-rail corridor. While it was meant to promote long-term redevelopment, the site’s small size means any redevelopment would likely require land assembly over a long time.

The Planning Commission was poised Aug. 19 to put some conditions on the new restaurant and drive-through, including closing at 1am instead of the current 5am on weekends. The commission also wanted more security as well as conditions on new building design and the number of parking spaces.

But because Taco Bell wanted longer hours and disagreed with the conditions, the new restaurant plans were withdrawn. The plans can be resubmitted in the future.

But Planning Commission members said business cannot continue as usual.

“We have some significant concerns regarding the operations by Border Foods,” said Commissioner Julie Padilla. She said the conditions hammered out were respectful to the business and its neighborhood.

Several commissioners said the result could have been a new restaurant that neighbors could live with. They want to hear from DSI about what is being done to deal with problems blamed on Taco Bell, and what changes can be made.

The commission also wants a complete look at all inspections and building-related history, including complaints about behavior. It’s not clear what would come out of that discussion and what the commission could recommend. But some commissioners said it’s obvious the city hasn’t been responsive to complaints. Border Foods has countered that it has been responsive and had worked with city staff and police to address issues.

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