Cafe Ginger Wants to Open on Main

Editor's Note: For full disclosure, the applicant, Sam Baytar, is my cousin.

Sam Baytar wants to open Cafe Ginger, a Turkish vegetarian restaurant, in the building that used to house the Golden Cone Ice Cream Parlor at 406 Main Street. Baytar says he just wants to remodel the interior for use as a restaurant while making only minor improvements to the parking lot outside, but issues over the site plan are holding up his special exception permit application.

Last Thursday, the Planning & Zoning Commission told Baytar's attorney, Dominick Thomas, that a complete application is needed before his client can go forward with a public hearing.

Thomas and Baytar will seek guidance from town land use staff in completing a lighting plan, engineering survey and site plan in time for the P&Z's May 16 meeting.

Baytar had initially thought he could use the special exception permit Golden Cone had received, but Thomas told the commission the permit had never been filed with the town and commissioners said some requirements of the permit were never complied with.

Inoperable Light Posts

During Thursday's meeting, Thomas, asked the commission about lighting and landscaping plans that were already approved for the previous tenant (the property is owned by Ray Ganim).

Commission Vice Chairman William Porter said the owners of Golden Cone had originally submitted a lighting plan with three existing light posts in the parking lot, but added that the lights do not work.

Rather than paying to fix the light posts, Porter said the past applicant wanted to use an existing flood light on a nearby CL&P pole. But Porter said that light was spilling over to neighboring properties and needed to be adjusted.

The lighting plan called for fixing the light posts and adjusting the flood light, but none of the work was ever done, according to Chairman Pat O'Hara.

An Old Survey

Cafe Ginger's application includes an old engineering study, which Town Engineer Scott Schatzlein said must be updated. "You can't use a survey from 12 years ago," he said. "It doesn't have the information on it."

For instance, Schatzlein said the old engineering survey does not reflect changes stemming from a Connecticut Department of Transportation project on Route 25, in which an easement allowed it to run a drainage line over the parking lot to a catch basin behind the property and an island was put in near the entrance.

Another issue is over a propane tank behind the building.

Thomas said Rural Gas Co. told him proper town permits had been obtained when the tank was put in and that it is on a concrete slab and blocks, rather than footings, so it is not a structure. If it is determined that its location is over the property line, Thomas said Ganim can work that out with his neighbor.

O'Hara said he received a note from the fire marshal saying that no town permits were obtained for the propane tank.

A Dry Restaurant

Cafe Ginger's plan calls for 25 tables, but Thomas said he found out that Monroe's regulations require a minimum of 50 tables for a liquor permit and that no food establishment with under 25 seats can sell alcoholic beverages or allow patrons to bring their own wine.

He said his client can make an effort to have 55 approved seats to comply.

Thomas expressed his belief that Monroe's regulation may have unintended consequences such as in his client's case.

"I had the same issue in Seymour," he said of a regulation near the back of its book saying no parking was allowed within 25 feet of a street line. Thomas said the officials who wrote it "forgot it was an urban town" and that every business would already be in violation of the regulation.