Restaurateur runs into limited alcohol hours in Ocean View

NORFOLK

Donald Rockwell expected a warm welcome from the Ocean View Task Force when he spoke to the group two months ago.

He runs two successful restaurants near Old Dominion University and proposed opening another, an upscale eatery he plans to call the Boars Nest, on 1st View Street in Ocean View.

But there wasn't a lot of love in the audience when the group learned he wanted to sell alcohol until 2 a.m. on weekends. The Ocean View civic leaders gave his proposal a unanimous thumbs-down. Earlier this month, the City Council followed the task force's recommendation, limiting alcohol sales to 11 p.m. on weekdays and midnight on Friday and Saturday.

Rockwell told council members that he is being held to a double standard. Most eateries downtown, near ODU and in the Military Circle area can serve alcohol until 2 a.m. Why, Rockwell asked, is Ocean View an exception?

History, replied Councilman W. Randy Wright, who represents most of Ocean View and has made cleaning up the area's tawdry image a personal goal.

Ocean View and nearby East Little Creek Road were once overrun with troublesome bars that generated dozens of police calls on weekends. More than a dozen strip bars attracted drugs and prostitution to the areas around Ocean View Avenue, Shore Drive and Little Creek Road, Wright said in an interview.

"There were so many problems when the bars began to empty out at 2 a.m.," he said.

As a result, in the early 1990s, the city instituted a policy that prevented new restaurants in Ocean View from serving alcohol after midnight. Technically, in Virginia, there are no bars, only restaurants because an establishment must serve food in order to serve alcohol. Yet, many of Ocean View eateries were restaurants in name only because they lived off alcohol sales.

"What we tried to do was to get those bars to operate like restaurants," Wright said.

When a restaurant was sold, its selling hours were cut back. Slowly, over the next decade, as dozens of restaurants changed hands, alcohol sales after midnight began to subside, and s o did the problems.

In recent years, Ocean View has seen an influx of family-oriented restaurants, such as Razzo, Captain Groovy's Grill and Seafood Raw Bar and Mona Lisa's. All agreed to limit alcohol sales to midnight or earlier.

"It helped change the character of Ocean View," Robert Layton, a Willoughby resident and commissioner for the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority, said of the city's get-tough policy.

Councilman Don Williams, who represents Willoughby, said the city might be applying a double standard, but that's because Ocean View is different from downtown.

"I don't know many people who eat after midnight down here," he said. "Downtown, it's different. You may go out to eat after a show or a hockey game. People do eat at midnight after a show. They don't here."

Not so, Rockwell said. Younger residents in Ocean View's upscale new developments are looking for entertainment and don't want to drive downtown to find it, he said.

Rockwell plans to have bands perform in his restaurant. Cutting off alcohol sales at midnight could hurt his business, he said.

Rockwell said he worries about his competition. His restaurant is within a short drive of three restaurants that serve alcohol until 2 a.m. They are among about 20 restaurants in Ocean View and on Little Creek Road that operate under the old rules because their ownerships have n't changed, Wright said.

The Ocean View Civic League partially agreed with Rockwell, voting unanimously to allow him to serve alcohol until 1 a.m., according to a letter penned by civic league President Al Saunders.

The letter hasn't swayed Wright.

"I wish him well," Wright said of Rockwell. "But once you relent on one restaurant, you've got to open it up for every one of them."

Harry Minium, (757) 446-2371, harry.minium@pilotonline.com