City Planners Hear Eagle Rock Brewery's Request to Stay in Business

If city authorities ever needed reassurance that a popular artisanal microbrewery can be a strong community asset as well a vital part of the metropolis’s cultural revolution, they got ample proof Tuesday.

In an afternoon public hearing conducted by the Los Angeles Department of City Planning at City Hall, some 25 individuals from as far as Long Beach and the City of Commerce testified that the Glassell Park-based Eagle Rock Brewery is a professionally run business that makes a great effort to be a valuable part of the community.

The microbrewery, owned by father-and-son partners Steve and Jeremy Raub, is the first of its kind in Los Angeles in decades—and a favorite subject of food and beverage bloggers. But a “conditional use permit” to serve beer to the public for consumption on and off the brewery premises was appealed by a commercial property owner in Glassell Park, resulting in today’s hearing to consider whether or not the brewery should be allowed to continue to sell beer.

“We’ve heard nothing but positive things about the brewery since it opened, and I think the reason for that is that Jeremy and Steve know what they do and love what they do,” Mitch O’Farrell, senior advisor on special projects to CD 13 Councilmember Eric Garcetti, told City Planner Patricia Diefenderfer, who conducted the July 12 hearing.

“The brewery has been widely supported in the community and is helping to revive the neighborhood where it is located,” O’Farrell said, presenting a letter of support to the city’s Community Planning Bureau.

O’Farrell urged the bureau to approve the brewery’s request to keep on serving beer on and off the premises “so that it can continue to thrive and remain one of the small local businesses that are helping to improve the economy in Los Angeles.”

Eagle Rock Brewery opened on Roswell Street in Glassell Park about 18 months ago, shortly before a commercial property owner on the same street appealed the city’s permit granted to the brewery. The complaint was based on a misconception, Jeremy Raub, told Diefenderfer, that the brewery would sell cheap canned beer that might make it a source of public nuisance.

“The brewing industry, especially craft brewing, is doing very well right now—and it’s exactly the kind of business that needs to be encouraged,” said one of Eagle Rock Brewery’s supporters at the hearing.

Another supporter told the hearing officer that in the seven months that he has been a customer at the brewery, he has never seen anyone intoxicated. Customers are served beer in relatively small glasses—and they sip the beverage for the most part, the supporter said, adding: “I don’t want people to think that they’re over-imbibing.”

Although some 60 members of the public attended the hearing in a room on the 10th floor of City Hall, nobody spoke against extending the brewery’s permit. The brewery's supporters ranged from self-described food critics and food vendors to home brewers and local residents.

Several speakers emphasized that Eagle Rock Brewery regularly invites food trucks and small businesses and that if the brewery were not granted the permit it had requested, a string of local vendors would be adversely affected.

“We have increased local commerce by attracting tourists who shop at neighborhood stores,” Jeremy Raub said at the hearing, adding that the brewery is on good terms with the LAPD’s Northeast Division. “We think we’ve played a valuable role in helping revitalize our community, so we request that we be granted permit approval.”

A tasting room is critical to the brewery’s operations because, as Jeremy Raub told the bearing officer, the brewery does not yet bottle or can the beer it makes. However, the brewery does sell high-end artisanal beers of other brands for consumption outside the brewery premises, Raub said. Those beers are priced at an average of about $9 per bottle and $24 for the highest-price bottle, he added.

Eagle Rock Brewery was initially granted a 10-year permit in 2009, Jeremy Raub told Eagle Rock Patch, but the permit was decreased to five years in a 2009 hearing that followed the commercial landowner’s protest.

In the latest hearing, the city’s Community Planning Bureau wanted to “make sure that we weren’t creating problems in the neighborhood,” Jeremy Raub said.

The Community Planning Bureau’s decision on whether or not Eagle Rock Brewery’s permit will be extended will be known in a few months, Diefenderfer said.