City Council to Consider Jerry’s Billiards Appeal Against Zoning Decision Limiting Hours of Operation

The Pasadena City Council is scheduled to make a final decision Monday on a zoning appeals case that would limit the hours of operation of Crown City Billiards and Lounge, also known as Jerry’s Billiards, a 38-year-old business located at 1312 North Lake Ave.

The business has been operating for years — wrongly, zoning officials allege — until 1:00 a.m. and later.

In April 2022 the City’s Code Compliance Division issued a citation to Jerry’s Billiards, saying that the business was open after 10:00 p.m. and that was in violation of city code section 17.40.070.

On Sept. 9 the Zoning Administrator agreed with the citation and determined that Jerry’s must close at 10 p.m. unless the owners applied for and obtained a special conditional use permit to stay open later.

Frank Yanez for Crown City appealed the Administrator’s decision but the Board of Zoning Appeals sided with the Administrator and affirmed that Jerry’s Billiards must cut its hours of operations — setting the stage for Monday’s final decision-making by the Council.

Yanez and his representatives argue that Jerry’s Billiards has been classified for decades as a non-conforming use and therefore is not required to operate under any conditional use permit. However, City zoning officials have made it clear in their rulings that all businesses, regardless of status, must obtain a conditional use permit to stay open past 10:00 p.m. if they operate near residential zoning.

The City also points to a Code Compliance Certificate allegedly filed in 2017 by Crown City, the parent company of Jerry’s Billiards, and signed by Yanez that stated the business’s hours were 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. 

“Any ability to operate with nonconforming hours was abandoned when the appellant submitted the Code Compliance Certificate form and indicated that the business would operate from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.,” Zoning Administrator Beilin Yu wrote.

Besides, Yu wrote, the applicant has not provided documentation that the City approved hours of operation between 10:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m.

But Yanez says he never filled out or signed the form and has even secured the testimony of an independent “incontrovertible handwriting analyst” who reportedly determined that the hours portion of the Application was filled out by someone else, not by Yanez.

In City documents, City staff does not dispute the billiard hall’s nonconforming status but does not support Yanez’s contention that since Jerry’s Billiards existed before the 1994 business hours restrictions change, the restrictions do not apply to Jerry’s.

When the business was established there were no restrictions on hours of operation applicable to its zoning district (C-2).

The Zoning Administrator and the Zoning Appeals Board concluded that the ordinance regulating business hours close to residential zoning applies equally to all operating businesses, including nonconforming ones.

Since the Board of Zoning Appeals has already upheld the Zoning Administrator’s appeal, the City Council will be the final arbiter in this case.