Permits

Have you heard? Glendale has proposed a poor tax that will cost hundreds of dollars per family and potentially lives. It is the city's proposed ordinance to eventually limit each household to only two cars. The city also proposed that a guest permit be obtained each and every time a visitor stays overnight. The proposed permit costs would be prohibitively expensive and an unnecessary burden to anyone on a tight budget. By the city's own calculations, a married couple living in a condo or an apartment with two high school-age kids who have a friend stay over once a month would be required to pay $399 a year for permits.

To encourage coffeehouses to locate in the city and to promote its fledgling Artists Village, the City Council has greatly reduced permit fees for coffeehouses and similar businesses. Under fees approved Monday, the cost for conditional-use permits will drop from $1,656 to $150 for coffeehouses and other businesses that do not serve alcohol but require cover charges for live entertainment.

The City Council this week renewed the entertainment permit of one bar but gave a second tavern 30 days to clean up its act or face losing its permit. With the council's decision, the Oak bar can continue to offer live entertainment from a three-piece unamplified band as well as dancing, pool games and dart machines for another year. But the council said it will consider pulling the Casbah's entertainment permit in a month if the owner does not address numerous complaints.

Here are building permits valued at $350,000 and up filed recently in Orange County. CORONA DEL MAR * Project: Home Address: 1709 Galatea Terrace Value: $389,000 Owner: Kevin Maguire COTO DE CAZA * Project: Five homes Address: 1 River Rock Drive Value: $369,000 Owner: Richmond American Homes * Project: Eight homes Address: 8 Weather Ledge Value: $386,000 Owner: Toll Brothers Inc.

The 815 permits for multi-family housing issued in March was the largest monthly total this year, and an 84% increase over the previous month. However, the first-quarter total of 1,614 was 5.6% lower than 1988's same period. Comparing this year to last, the major declines have taken place in San Clemente and Anaheim, the largest increases in the county's unincorporated areas and in the city of Garden Grove. Although 1989's first-quarter permit number is just 5.6% below last year, it is easily the lowest for a comparable period during the last four years--58% below 1987's first quarter and 61% below 1986.

The La Habra City Council has approved an entertainment permit that will allow a pool table, jukebox, two video games and live mariachi music at El Leoncito restaurant. With Thursday's unanimous vote, the restaurant at 100 W. La Habra Blvd. will offer mariachi music from 8 to 10 p.m. Fridays and 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sundays. But the permit requires the restaurant to keep its doors closed.

The Beverly Hills school board is expected to decide Tuesday whether to end a permit program that has allowed nearly 500 students who don't live in the city to attend its top-flight public schools. But because this is 90210, the proposal is not without drama -- including accusations of elitism, snobbery and exclusion. Since the issue heated up this school year, tempers have reached a boiling point, with both sides trading insults and name-calling. Essays and even a video have turned up on websites such as the Huffington Post.

Fortunetellers and other occult-related businesses will need permits to operate in Westminster, the City Council has decided. In 1997, police began investigating fortunetelling services advertised in Vietnamese-language newspapers. According to city reports, officers found that many were operating from homes without any business permits. In addition, officials said, several prospective operators of such businesses have asked about setting up shop in the city.

"Flip Artists" by Carol Tice (Feb. 24) prompts me to add a few cautions on some important local and state regulations and tax considerations that may apply. If you do structural improvements that require building department approvals, you may run afoul of California's contractor licensing laws. The state requires that people who "make improvements to real property" be licensed as contractors; a contractor's license is necessary to obtain building permits except for homeowners acting as "owner-builders."