Amy’s Patio Café code-bombed by county

After a long period of calm, the county is back to code-bombing again.  The latest victim: Amy’s Patio Café.

Amie Moore’s restaurant at 900 E. Altadena Drive quietly added live music to its menu on Friday and Saturday nights for several months.  According to Moore, on May 5, an LA County inspector came to check her business license.

Moore said, in an email:

While he was there he noticed that I had flyers on the table for the Saturday ‘Dinner and Song’ that we had been putting on (for a year at least though I’m not sure that’s something I should make a big deal about). He then proceeded to write me a notice that I had to apply for having music on the premises as well as a manager (two separate permits) and I had to take care of them by May 27th.

Moore said she went down to the county permit office in downtown Los Angeles, and she was informed that to have any live music at all would require a $2,000 permit.

“I asked if it was necessary even if it was me because I am a musician playing acoustic music with my friends in my own restaurant and they said it just didn’t matter,” Moore wrote.

Discouraged, Moore writes, “I just figured it was a done deal and that May 24 would be the last night. We had a full house and I stayed to say goodbye to all of my musician friends. During the evening, I guess after hearing what this was all about, I got an anonymous donation for the amount of the permit!”

But her excitement was short-lived: “I went to the permit office again only to find out that it would take between 2 to 6 months for the permit to make it through zoning,” Moore wrote.  “And even then it was not guaranteed to be issued. It is like a liquor license and has to go through public hearings, etc.

“The long story short is that I can’t do the evenings without the music… we barely break even with those nights but it is because I am a musician and it makes me happy to have been able to provide a place to create music that I do it. So, for the time being, I am going to close [Friday and Saturday nights] and hope for the best with the permit.

“It’s such a shame because it’s Altadena which is full of so many types of artists! We were even thinking of starting a new music night on Fridays… called ‘Folksy Fridays’ because there are also so many folk musicians in the area.”