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Ningún Amor Para Taco Bell
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The Westmar Sun reports that Mar Vista neighbors lost the latest round in their fight to oppose the redesign of a Taco Bell franchise at the intersection of Inglewood and Venice Blvds when the City Council’s Planning and Land-Use Management Committee gave a quick green light to the plan on Oct. 27. The Los Angeles City Council also approved the new Taco Bell, 13-0, on Nov. 9. The Mar Vista district's Council Member Cindy Miscikowski voted in favor of a proposed zone variance that allows more compact parking spaces than would otherwise be required.
Taco Bell is trying to refurbish an existing restaurant, but the building's proposed design elements are distasteful to area residents. The main problem is that Taco Bell wants to build a building too large for the lot size and install more parking spaces than the site can handle, a familiar Los Angeles parking annoyance.
Neighbors are articulate, even poetic, in their rage about the decision. The Westmar Sun article states:
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Dorothy Garven, a nearby resident, called the design “a tasteless, bawdy building” and said the neighbors feel that the city is “thumbing its nose at us,” citing recent approval of the Playa Vista project as another example. Sara Roos said it would be a "terrible precedent" to grant the variance.
Pat Allen mentioned a “serious safety problem,” and Alex Schub called the Oct. 27 appeal the “tail end in a war of attrition being waged by a high-cholesterol corporation against our neighborhood.”
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