Planning Commission members voice ‘real concerns’ with proposed hotel

By NEIL HARTSTEIN NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER

A proposal to build a 250-room hotel at 101 Garden St. ran into a serious roadblock when several Planning Commission members voiced concern that the hotel might have an adverse impact on the city’s housing stock.

Commission members also questioned the developers’ decision not to provide affordable housing for the 60 employees envisioned to operate the Garden Street Hotel, instead of making them commute from Ventura, Oxnard and Lompoc.

“The Funk Zone doesn’t need another hotel,” Commission member Lucille Boss said at the Thursday meeting. “We need affordable housing. We do have a need for 8,000 housing units.

Why a hotel?”

She and other commission members suggested that if the developers fail to build adequate housing for their workers, that they be required to pay linkage fees to go into the city’s new HOPE affordable housing trust.

Commission member Lesley Wiscomb suggested that

“we could as a commission encourage or recommend to council that a certain percentage of transient occupancy taxes from this project be put into the HOPE fund.”

Sean Gilbert, representing the project’s development team, said building large-scale affordable housing at the site, instead of the hotel, which has been in the works for years, would simply “not be financially viable at that scale.

“It won’t pencil out.”

A previous proposal by the owners, the Wright family, called for building 91 residential condominiums on the site, with 20 of them slated as “affordable,” but they later withdrew the project claiming it would not be profitable.

A conceptual plan for the new hotel project was considered by the Planning Commission in 2019, and a majority found it to be acceptable, according to Kathleen Kennedy, the city’s case planner, for the project. The proposed 174,812-squarefoot hotel and subterranean parking garage would be built on

Please see HOTEL on A2

By KATHERINE ZEHNDER NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER

A new Mexican restaurant, Taqueria La Unica, has opened on State Street.

The Santa Barbara restaurant, which opened April 3, is co-owned by brothers Carlos and Christian Luna.

“So far business has been amazing!

We’ve had a line out the door since the first day, and we are so grateful for this community’s support,” Carlos Luna told the News-Press.

Taqueria La Unica is located at 3771 State St., and as its name suggests, it showcases the art of traditional Mexican street food, including tacos, alongside other popular taqueria mainstays.

“At Taqueria La Unica, you’ll find

Please see RESTAURANT on A4

By NEIL HARTSTEIN NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER

The 19-year-old Santa Maria man who was shot and killed last month by an off-duty police officer outside an Orcutt market had just brandished a “ghost gun” and fired at a group of people during a physical altercation with him and another group, the county Sheriff’s Office said.

The Sheriff’s Office released additional information Friday regarding the shooting that occurred at Melody Market on March 25.

Just before 8 p.m. on that Saturday, two vehicles, with four occupants in each vehicle, arrived separately at Melody Market, the Sheriff’s Office said.

One of the occupants of the vehicles was 19year-old Manuel Reyes Rios of Santa Maria. Moments later, an off-duty Santa Maria Police Officer arrived in his personal vehicle with his family. A fourth vehicle, with a woman and her two children, also arrived at the market.

“While the off-duty officer and the woman were inside the store, the two groups from the other vehicles engaged in a physical altercation in the parking lot,” the Sheriff’s Office said. “The off-duty officer had returned to his vehicle at the same time that Mr. Rios brandished a firearm and shot at the other group, striking one of them. Rios paused in his shooting, running past the off-duty officer who had drawn his firearm and police badge.”

The off-duty officer verbally identified himself as an officer and ordered Rios to stop shooting and surrender. “Mr. Rios did not comply with the off-duty police officer’s command, raising his firearm and shooting again at the other group and towards an occupied restaurant,” the Sheriff’s Office said.

“This resulted in injury to one of the patrons from flying debris caused by Mr. Rios’ shooting. In that moment, the off-duty police officer fired at Rios until he dropped to the ground.”

The off-duty officer called emergency services on his cell phone, ushered the uninvolved bystanders into the market and