The Cliff Stop drive-through convenience store on Clarendon near Hampton could lose its drive through after the City Plan Commission voted Thursday to deny the owner’s request to renew the permit that allows it.
City Staff advised the planning panel that the store’s owners have not complied with some conditions of the permit.
The business is incompatible with the surrounding residential neighborhood, the business does not “contribute to, enhance or promote the welfare of the adjacent properties,” according to city staff. And the owners didn’t erect a sign advising motorists to make only a right turn out of the parking lot so that traffic is diverted from the adjacent residential neighborhood.
The first two points are debatable, but a representative for the owner told the commission that a right-turn only sign is now up. They received a warning from code enforcement about the sign and for staying open past 10 p.m., but since then have had no violations.
Celina Gonzalez, who lives on Brandon and works at the store, presumably will lose her job if the drive-through closes. She told the panel that many families come through because it’s convenient for people with little kids — they don’t have to take them out of car seats and buckle them back in just to pick up a bag or chips, say.
Florencio Esquivel, whom commissioners did not remind to give his address, said the business draws “a rowdy crowd.”
“They broke all their promises to the neighbors,” he told the commission, in that they only offer beer and wine and no groceries.
But the store does sell coffee and donuts in the drive through every morning, and it does sell sundry snacks.
The Old Oak Cliff Conservation League presented a petition with 76 signatures asking that the drive through be closed. The league’s opposition to it, as well as city staff’s recommendation to deny the permit, let commissioner Mike Anglin of Oak Cliff to ask for a vote denying the permit.
The measure will go to the full City Council for approval.
