Only takes a few. Termination of Restaurant Beverage Program Authorization
Yeesh that sucks
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Holy shit. I certainly don’t know the administrative and legal history of the site to know whether Beethoven Market is technically in the wrong here. Certainly LA thinks so.
Legalities aside, this just feels wrong. Beethoven Market is an awesome spot. They kept prices low and end service early as a gesture to the community. 99% of the neighborhood loves the spot. And now they’re cut off at the knees. I wonder if they can survive without alcohol sales; it’s still perpetually busy but that’s a ginormous hit to the bottom line.
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Here’s what I have been able to uncover thus far.
Beethoven Market was selling alcohol under the Los Angeles Restaurant Beverage Program (RBP), an initiative that lets qualifying sit-down restaurants serve alcohol through a faster, lower-cost administrative approval compared to a Conditional Use Permit. The program is run by the City of Los Angeles Planning Department, limited to designated areas and requires restaurants to comply with operational and good-neighbor standards.
Here’s the RBP boundary map:
Beethoven Market opened on March 29, 2025.
In the subsequent 9 months, unknown individuals - presumably the very small cohort of a handful of miserable pissy NIMBY neighbors, filed a whopping 49 code violation complaints. Most of these complaints were investigated and closed without a citation (just think of how much city resources these complaints wasted). However, several complaints pertaining to the Restaurant Beverage Program were deemed to have merit and led to further investigation.
I’ve owned property in LA (property other than a standard single family home) and have been subject to NIMBY neighbors reporting bullshit code enforcement violations. The most I ever dealt with was a handful of reports over the course of several months. 49 reports in nine months is absolutely insane.
If a restaurant receives three citations within any two-year period, the RBP authorization terminates immediately and the business cannot reapply for five years.
The timeline in the Termination of RBP Authorization Letter shows that five RBP conditions were allegedly violated across three citations. Here are the claimed violations along with the text from the ordinance.
A-2: The restaurant shall be maintained as a bona fide eating place with an operational kitchen where food is prepared onsite and with a full menu containing an assortment of foods. Food service is available at all times during operating hours. The restaurant provides seating and dispenses food and refreshments for consumption on the premises and not solely for the purpose of food takeout or delivery.
It’s hard for me to fathom how Beethoven Market genuinely violated this one. They never operate just as a bar without food service, or just as a takeout operation.
A-10: Daily hours of operation shall be limited to the hours between 7:00 a.m. and 11:00 p.m. for both indoor and outdoor areas. There shall be no after-hours use of the restaurant, other than for routine clean-up and maintenance.
The latest they are open is 10PM. If I had to guess, there were instances of guests still eating/drinking past 11PM, rather than being kicked out. What restaurant wants to kick people out? But, under the RBP, all customers must be out by 11PM. Seems like an easy one to remedy and not repeat in the future, though.
B-4: For properties abutting or across an alley from an A or R zoned lot:
(i) a wholly enclosed building, at least 8 feet in height above grade and extending at least the full length of the outdoor dining area, shall be located between the outdoor dining area and an A or R zoned lot that may or may not be separated by an alley. This requirement shall not apply to outdoor dining permitted on a public sidewalk by a revocable permit issued by the Bureau of Engineering, Department of Public Works; and (ii) outdoor seating shall be limited to the ground floor only.
Beethoven market both abuts an R lot and is across the alley from an R lot. See my graphic below. The lot behind it (across the alley) should be ok assuming the Beethoven Market building is at least 8’ in height (which it may not be, i’m not sure). It’s the property next to Beethoven Market that may be the problem. The outdoor dining directly abuts that property with no 8’ vertical separation. I have no clue if Beethoven Market’s outdoor patio is outdoor dining permitted on a public sidewalk by a revocable permit, but I presume it is not.
B-8: Music or speakers are prohibited in all outdoor areas
Easy to imagine they could have violated this. Also easy to fix and not repeat.
E-6:The owner or the operator of the restaurant shall reapply for the administrative clearance if there is: (i) a change in State alcohol license type; (ii) a modification to the floor plan, including, but not limited to, floor area or number of seats, or a modification to outdoor seating; or (iii) a change in the ownership or the operator of the
restaurant.
I seem to recall when they opened they only had the patio for outdoor dining, then later I think they added sidewalk seating. No clue if that was all submitted as part of the original RBP application. Assuming it was not, seems easy to get rid of any potentially violative additional seating and simply reapply for a new RBP with the new seating configuration.
The Enforcement Timeline.
May 12, 2025 – Initial warning (Notice of Code Violation) for A-2, B-8, E-6
July 14, 2025 – Order to Comply for A-2, B-8, E-6, and also new notice for A-10
September 15, 2025 – Supplemental Order to Comply for B-4
That third citation on September 15 automatically triggered termination under the RBP rules.
It is unlikely any of this would have transpired if not for handful of asshole NIMBY neighbors. Nobody is proactively looking for these sorts of violations.
All of the violations seem easy to rectify, except possibly B-4 (the one about requiring an 8’ wall between outdoor seating and an abutting R lot). But even B-4 could theoretically be rectified by removing the outdoor patio.
Nimby asshole neighbors certainly set the wheels in motion here, but Beethoven Market appears to have been asleep at the wheel. They didn’t remedy the violations upon being noticed, even though all of the violations have clear solutions.
Beethoven Market is now prohibited from re-applying for the RBP for 5 years. They can still go after a full Conditional Use Permit to facilitate a standard beer/wine license, but unfortunately that means public hearings and a public record the likes of which would now include all the documentation related to the termination of their RBP permit. Not looking good.
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absolutely terrible neighbors and continued evidence that NIMBY is consistently hurting the growth in neighborhoods.
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shows just how cooked this city is, in a nutshell. westsiders won’t be happy until they live in an actual suburb, instead of America’s 2nd largest city
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Westsiders (of which I am one) are probably worse to deal with on average than eastsiders due to perhaps relative availability of resources and sense of entitlement.
The bigger issue is the system that allows this sequence of events to occur in the first place.
- It should not be this difficult to get a beer/wine license. Even the RBP is too unwieldy.
- The compliance conditions should be fewer in quantity, verbosity and subjectivity.
- The notice and cure process should be more generous.
- Individuals who file a certain number of complaints without merit in a period of time should be penalized (fines, bond to submit new complaint, etc.) just as those who make unnecessary 911 calls are.
And apply all of the above to general restaurant permitting, and then to permitting of every kind.
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While not loving NIMBYs and acknowledging that the violation system was likely abused, I do want to offer an alternative perspective. With never having actually been but seeing that it is truely surrounded on all sides by residential property I can see how some neighbors specifically neighbors in the direct vicinity might be aggrieved especially if they did not observe closing times or exceeded decibel levels. Especially after they expanded their dining footprint, extended operating hours and simultaneously eliminated parking spots causing parking and traffic congestion in the neighbhorhood. If you’re a business owner in that type of environment you have to follow the rules to a T and that unfortunately falls on the operators.
There’s a lot of wild takes but also some more nuanced ones in this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/FoodLosAngeles/comments/1q07dxs/beethoven_markets_alcohol_sale_license_has_been/
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I’m going tonight, I’ll try to find out more. Wonder if I’ll need to drink my champagne under the table? 
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Someone on Reddit said they were still serving wine as of last night, so either this is their final hurrah before they are permanently shut down, or maybe they appealed and were granted a stay? Either way, would be curious to know what the actual situation is. Enjoy your dinner!
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I know (think?) you’re joking, but, if the liquor license is revoked, can’t you simply, as a customer, simply bring in your alcohol, not be charged corkage, and also not have to hide it?
Legally, as I understand it, restaurants cannot allow byob unless they have a on site sales permit. Even more so if there is a pending application or in this case, NIMBY neighbors looking for any reason to report the business.
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Ah, that makes sense. The situation I was thinking of was that a restaurant in Pico/Robertson allowed for BYOB but, as you mentioned, the application was pending (IIRC; it was a long time ago).
I did service there one night. It’s just people talking outdoors. They don’t have larger than parties of 4 outdoors. The noise level is just standard conversation.
It might be one or two patrons lingering past 11 but quiet. The last reservation is 90 minutes before closing time.
The vast majority of people who have been there are shocked by the complaints.
Parking spots are honestly the biggest NIMBY complaint of all time. Good neighbor bar in atla Dena had their backyard patio shut down by the city because of constant complaints by 1-2 neighbors about parking. But they came to an agreement with the city to reopen.
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That’s correct. A restaurant needs a license to allow BYOB.
Eh I have no dog in this fight. I just read a lot of comments in that Reddit thread and the ppl bringing up negatives seemed to have some good points just like the ppl bringing up positives.
How many parties of 4 are seated outside? If it’s still many parties the total noise could still be an issue. If people are lingering past 11 that doesn’t seem to be allowed by the letter of the law. We can debate the reasonableness of those types of rules but if they had a relaxed conditional permit and they are experienced restaurant operators they should be on their best behavior esp when they know there is resistance in the neighborhood.
I will say that if I had a converted market that became a restaurant in my back yard that was popping nightly and took up all the street parking and made my neighborhood more congested I wouldn’t be very thrilled regardless of the accolades or hype from the food community. Would I report them one million times probably not, but if the above thoughts make me a nimby so be it lol.
I don’t think in this instance the opinions of the patrons really matters. It would be the residents in the area and also what the restaurant had/hadnt promised to the residents prior to opening or being granted additional concessions by the city.
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RE: Parking. All reservations have a comment to please park on Palms which is a major thru street in this area. IMHO, the parking is a nothing burger,
I was there NYE. The restaurant was full. Wine/Bar service was operating. The manager I know was not on site and the employees looked to be too busy. I asked our server if they were aware of any issues with the liquor license and she said they were moving from a temporary license to a permanent one. Not sure how accurate this is.
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Thanks for the update!
The City has no knowledge of such a thing, and is explicit that BM has no other authorization to sell alcohol:
as of the date of this letter, no other valid City authorization for the sale or service of alcoholic beverages applies to the site, including a Conditional Use Permit per LAMC Section 12.24 W.1 and any kind of administrative authorization
I also checked the state Alcoholic Beverage Control database and confirmed that BM does not have any sort of state license.
The plot thickens.
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Hate to say it, but I myself as a homeowner would be waging war over that one issue alone, if the restaurant had been unresponsive to more earlier, more polite communication about that.
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Having been there a number of times, the parking is seriously not a legitimate issue. 7:30 PM on a Saturday and I was able to park a 2 minute walk away. That means no homeowner is being displaced more than 2 minutes. Nobody is entitled to the spot right outside their house - let’s not be like Larry David who puts cones on the curb outside his house in the Palisades.
Anyways, if I owned Beethoven Market, and if there were pissed off neighbors that were operating in good faith (in this case I think at least some of the neighbors are operating in bad faith), then I would volunteer to campaign for resident permit only parking for a handful of blocks in either direction of the restaurant.
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