The not-so-sleepy island strikes again.
When Philadelphia real estate developer Bob Dwyer agreed to help his friends with a small addition to their restaurant, he thought it would be “a piece of cake.”
After months of back-and-forth revisions between the city of Holmes Beach and the Ugly Grouper, and failed “any day” promises for approvals, a revised site plan to expand the restaurant, 5704 Marina Drive, Holmes Beach, was approved Feb. 14.
But in order for the site plan to be approved, Holmes Beach commissioners required two special exceptions: off-site shared parking and limited amplified outdoor music.
“We basically caved in and we did whatever we had to do,” said Dwyer, the restaurant’s renovation manager in a phone interview. “I do all this stuff all over the country and to find the resistance was difficult.”
Based on the Grouper’s request to increase seating, Dwyer told commissioners the restaurant reworked parking to accommodate a maximum of 173 seats during the day and 239 seats after 5 p.m. The businesses that share parking will use some parking spaces in the daytime, which accounts for fewer seats for lunch guests at the Grouper. Plans for golf cart parking on grass on a portion of the property was abandoned.
Commission Chair Judy Titsworth said Feb. 14 she was concerned with the golf cart parking area contributing to the number of seats, prompting the owners to remove golf cart parking from the plan.
“We’re not looking to cheat anybody on spaces,” Dwyer said, adding 10 percent of the restaurant’s customers arrive in golf carts.
Grouper owners Mike Ross and Scott Roland purchased four properties near the restaurant to provide off-site shared parking, including a real estate office and car wash on Marina Drive, and two vacant, commercially zoned C-3 lots on 57th Street.
“They spent a lot of money trying to buy ground,” Dwyer said.
City planner Bill Brisson said the Grouper could accommodate its parking needs during peak lunch and dinner times.
“Parking was really the big thing,” he told commissioners.
Approved changes follow interior kitchen renovations, restroom updates and the addition of a walk-in cooler — all completed.
New improvements include a full-service liquor license, erecting artwork in the form of a statue and repositioning the bar.
Bev Lesnick, general manager of the Ugly Grouper, said she is happy the site plan was finally approved.
“The stage has to go away regardless of where it is now and it shouldn’t have even been there to begin with, because all it did was just send the sound back over to Flotilla (Drive),” Lesnick said. “It just bounces off that building and goes over to all those residents there.”
The second special exception included a “compromise” by the Grouper to cease music at 8 p.m.
Despite being allowing amplified music noon to 10 p.m. daily, the Grouper owners relented. They will stop their entertainment at 8 p.m. in order to comply with an existing code that requires nightclubs enclose music indoors after 8 p.m. Outdoor music currently is allowed at the Grouper until 10 p.m. by a prior special exception.
“We disagree with them wholeheartedly as to how they interpreted that,” Dwyer said of the nightclub ordinance. “I wish they handled it differently.”
Titsworth said Feb. 14 she hears complaints from the neighbors “all the time” about noise at the restaurant and prefers music be indoors.
Commissioner Pat Morton said he can hear the music four blocks away from the Grouper.
“The amplified music is not good for outdoors,” Morton said.
Dwyer said he sympathizes with area residents who complain about the music.
But, he said, if people knew how much money we were going to spend improving the soundstage and the addition of an automatic sound cutoff that would prevented noise violations, they may have thought differently.
“Right now we have the ability to play until 10 o’clock with none of this stuff in place. It’s odd that we’ve been pushed back,” Dwyer said.
Commissioners unanimously approved the Grouper plan with a stipulation to revisit and adjust the off-site shared parking and reconsider the music.
“The business is not going to be as great as it could have been with just letting us follow the rules,” Dwyer said of the Grouper, “so there’s going to be some loss of revenue and that’s the unfortunate part.”
The commission will convene for a work session at 6 p.m. Thursday, March 2, at city hall, 5801 Marina Drive, Holmes Beach.
