New Ojai Chain Restaurant Gets Some Resistance

(Tuesday, April 18, 2006) - Dan Burrell says his Jersey Mike's Subs sandwich shops have been greeted with open arms, and open mouths, in Ventura and Camarillo.

Ojai, however, is a bit different.

Burrell is set to open his third Jersey Mike's franchise around June 1 in a building on Ojai Avenue that was last home to the Ojai Brew Pub. Although Burrell says most of the feedback he's gotten has been positive, a vocal contingent of Ojai residents thinks that the city would be better off without his restaurant.

Jersey Mike's, based in Manasquan, N.J., is a national chain with more than 300 stores, including four in Ventura County. In Ojai, where fast-food outlets have set up shop just outside the city limits and the locals have long resisted chain-store incursions, that's enough to make Burrell a few enemies.

"It's really not about Jersey Mike's specifically," said Kenley Neufeld, an Ojai resident and a librarian at Santa Barbara City College. "I'm worried about the slippery slope. ... One of the things that makes Ojai unique is the lack of national chain businesses, especially in our downtown area, and I think that model has served us well."

There are a handful of chain stores in downtown Ojai, but Neufeld said he's worried that Jersey Mike's will open the floodgates to fast-food chains.

A franchisee of Subway Restaurants — the nation's biggest restaurant chain with more than 20,000 outlets — has also been looking for a spot, Ojai City Manager Jere Kersnar said last week.

Burrell, who lives in Ojai, said his neighbors' fears are unfounded. Jersey Mike's is more of a "quick-service restaurant" than a fast-food joint, he said.

"We cook our own roast beef on the premises; we make our own meatballs," Burrell said. "People are going to realize that we're not a fast-food place, and we're going to fit great in the community."

Neufeld said some of the anti-Mike's crowd assumed that the shop would never open because they believed Ojai prohibits new chain stores. But there's never been any law like that on the books.

Kersnar and Ojai Mayor David Bury both said they believe that banning chain stores would be illegal.

"We can't discriminate based on the type of business that is being presented to the city," Bury said. "While I might prefer to see another type of business there, it's not my authority in a free enterprise system to say, 'You can have a business here and someone else can't.' "

What the city can do, he said, is set guidelines for signs, architecture and other aspects of a business's appearance. Ojai does not allow drive-through windows or neon signs, and wouldn't allow a building to stick out like a sore thumb the way a McDonald's with golden arches would, Bury said.

Those regulations have the effect of discouraging chain stores. So does the relatively small size of the Ojai market, and the small size of most available real estate.

"Some years ago, we had a large chain drugstore come here, and they chose not to build in Ojai because our zoning and planning standards were too onerous for them," Bury said. "We're not in danger of being overrun because our market isn't big enough, and we have very strong codes."

Burrell has all the permits he needs to open his shop, and is renovating the interior of the 1,500-square-foot site. Because the previous tenant was also a restaurant and Burrell doesn't plan any major changes to the building, the permits were granted without a hearing by the Ojai Planning Department or City Council.

Burrell said he's happy to comply with Ojai's regulations. The Jersey Mike's corporate office is flexible, he said, and allows franchise owners to open stores that fit the local surroundings.

"The look will be a little softer than in Ventura," he said. "It's really all about our sandwich and our service. Everything else is secondary."

Joan Forchione, a retired Ojai resident, said she plans to give Jersey Mike's a chance, although she's not thrilled that it's part of a chain. She was under the impression that Ojai banned chain stores.

"I'd prefer it not be (a chain), but people do need another place for lunch," she said.

Neufeld said he realizes that there's nothing the city can do to stop Burrell from opening his Jersey Mike's. But he doesn't want to see the business succeed, and he said he'll tell his friends not to eat there.

"We need to maintain our uniqueness," he said. "When I travel, everywhere I go looks the same. It's all very bland and generic, and that's one of the reasons I moved here. We're not bland — we're Ojai."

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