For years, this scenic Russian River Valley enclave has worked to foster a community supportive of local businesses, in part by making it difficult for large chains to move in. <\/p>\n
In 2018, Sebastopol leaders created an outright ban<\/a> on certain chain businesses \u2014 particularly restaurants and hotels \u2014 from its downtown. <\/p>\n But this month, one of the nation\u2019s largest pizza chains plans to open up in that exact downtown area \u2014 much to the concern, and surprise, of many locals. <\/p>\n The new Little Caesars restaurant was somehow approved in error, city officials recently admitted, as first reported by the Press Democrat<\/a>. The approval of the new franchise for the chain appears to have been granted despite being in direct conflict with the city\u2019s prohibition of \u201cformula,\u201d or chain, businesses in its downtown. <\/p>\n Officials with the city of Sebastopol owned up to the mistake but said it was too late to reverse course on the Little Caesars project, according to a statement shared on the city website<\/a>. The city didn\u2019t immediately respond to questions about how the error might change enforcement of the ban moving forward.<\/p>\n The City Council, however, recently considered<\/a> updating the ordinance, hoping to clarify its language and ease enforcement, officials said at a September council meeting. But those changes are still under review, and it doesn\u2019t appear they would reverse the downtown ban on chains. <\/p>\n In a statement about the Little Caesars approval, officials said the city \u201cregrets this oversight, accepts full accountability for the error, and remains committed to transparency, accountability, and the consistent enforcement of city policies and procedures.<\/p>\n \u201cWe appreciate the community\u2019s understanding and patience as we strengthen our processes.\u201d<\/p>\n The statement did not say how the project came to be approved but said officials with the city\u2019s administration had already started a \u201ccomprehensive review of the permitting process to identify the cause and implement corrective actions.\u201d<\/p>\n Beyond the ban of certain chains in its downtown area, Sebastopol zoning laws for commercial areas outside of the downtown district specifically regulate and require additional permits for \u201cformula businesses,\u201d which are chain businesses with 25 or more locations nationwide, according to the city<\/a>. Little Caesars Enterprises Inc., based in Detroit, was founded in 1959 as a single, family-owned restaurant, but it has since expanded dramatically, with locations in all 50 states and in 30 countries and territories, according to the business<\/a>. <\/p>\n The Press Democrat reported that the Little Caesars planned for Sebastopol, at 231 Petaluma Ave., plans to open sometime this week. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For years, this scenic Russian River Valley enclave has worked to foster a community supportive of local businesses,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":404749,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[64,1582,276,13942,191130,67887,718,7236,5375,70196,191133,191132,2961,46408,224,5337,191129,191134,191131,11004],"class_list":{"0":"post-404748","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-chain","12":"tag-chain-business","13":"tag-city-official","14":"tag-community","15":"tag-downtown","16":"tag-enforcement","17":"tag-error","18":"tag-exact-downtown-area","19":"tag-full-accountability","20":"tag-la","21":"tag-little-caesars","22":"tag-los-angeles","23":"tag-losangeles","24":"tag-outright-ban","25":"tag-press-democrat","26":"tag-sebastopol-leader","27":"tag-statement"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115613144564074958","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}