Bed-and-breakfast owner sues county Bed-and-breakfast owner sues county (January 28, 2004)

** Opinion split among residents over having inn as neighbor.

By David Boyce
Almanac Staff Writer

With the local U.S. District Court now being asked to weigh in on San Mateo County's decision to impose new restrictions on bed-and-breakfast inns in unincorporated parts of the county, the owner of an inn under construction near Redwood City has evidently decided to make a federal case out of it.

Tricia Young, a long-time Atherton resident and the owner of the yet-to-open Atherton Inn at 1201 West Selby Lane, has spent $1.64 million on the project since August 2000 and is suing the county over the new restrictions, said her lawyer Byron Fleck.

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for Northern California on December 23, about a week after the five-member county Board of Supervisors unanimously passed an emergency ordinance that establishes -- for the first time in the county -- regulations that govern room rentals of less than 30 days in residential districts.

The board is holding a public meeting at 9 a.m. January 27 to consider extending the 45-day emergency ordinance to 10 and 1/2 months. The measure must receive at least four votes. The board meets in its chambers at 400 County Center in Redwood City.

The ordinance limits the number of guests, rooms and vehicles and prohibits events that would bring in unregistered guests. The supervisors acted after being told of the development by neighbors who had found a Web site advertisement in which the inn offered to host seminars and family reunions.

That language has since been removed from the Web site on the advice of her attorney, Ms. Young said, adding that she meant to describe a living room setting for meetings for registered guests only.

Ms. Young's 6,400-square-foot, three-story house is located in a residential neighborhood and has five bedrooms, an elevator made for home use and a pair of two-car garages. With the garages, driveways and other paved surfaces, there is parking for as many as 18 cars, said Pat Shepherd, who lives on Nimitz Avenue.

"We watched it go up for two years. We thought it was a really big house," said Gloria Linder, who lives on Alexander Avenue. "It was only the first week of November that we found out."

"I think it's a great asset to the neighborhood," said David Rinow, who also lives on Nimitz Avenue, adding that he considers the new ordinance an outrage. "I see a woman who's been crushed by this," he said. "She was truly upset that people in the neighborhood were not excited about her opening up."

Mr. Fleck told the Almanac that the new ordinance violates his client's constitutional rights under the First, Fifth and 14th amendments. The lawsuit alleges that the ordinance prohibits Ms. Young's right to free assembly, treats her differently from owners of similar houses in the county, and alters county guidelines for the inns after construction was well under way, Mr. Fleck said.

"Because she has vested rights, they can't change the rules on her," Mr. Fleck said. "At the end of the day, the county, in my opinion, is going to be paying a lot of money."

The lawsuit seeks to recover either the cost of construction -- about $980,000 -- or the estimated income Ms. Young would lose if forced to operate under the restrictions of the new ordinance, Mr. Fleck said.

Supervisor Rich Gordon, who represents the district in which the inn is located, said he saw little substance in the suit, noting that the ordinance restricts certain kinds of commercial activity only and has no bearing on Ms. Young's personal life or her ability to operate a bed-and-breakfast at the site.

"We did not want to stop a bed-and-breakfast from going into the neighborhood," he said. "We wanted to make sure that it functions as a bed-and-breakfast."

It should embody the sense of a quiet place to spend a night or two, get breakfast and go sightseeing or shopping, Mr. Gordon said. "We have no opposition to bed-and-breakfasts. They're fine with us. We have always encouraged them and we'll continue to do that."

Mr. Fleck said he will be seeking a 10-day restraining order this week and then an injunction to either invalidate the ordinance or exempt the inn from the new law.

Neighbors' views

Mike Wedlake, a Realtor who lives one street away, said that during the Christmas holiday, he and his wife were visited by a petitioner seeking support for the inn with a promise of a free night's stay for a signature on the petition.

Mr. Wedlake said he's opposed because a bed-and-breakfast brings in more vehicle traffic and service employees and obligates homeowners to disclose to potential buyers the presence of a nearby business, thus lowering property values.

Anna West and her husband bought their home on West Selby Lane in March 2003, but were not informed of the presence of the inn, she said. "You buy a house hoping to raise property values," she said. "We were pretty much outraged [that] the county didn't feel it was necessary to let the neighbors know about [the inn]."

Mr. Rinow, who described himself as a Libertarian, said he sees no problem with having unregistered guests at the inn for meetings and said Ms. Young is being treated unfairly by the county's changing its guidelines after construction of the inn began.

In enacting the ordinance, the Board of Supervisors, he said, was "trying to mollify a group of disgruntled neighbors [but] handled it quite badly."

Past problems

Controversy is not new for Ms. Young. According to Atherton town attorney Marc Hynes, the town prosecuted Ms. Young about 10 years ago for operating a bed-and-breakfast from her home on Atherton Ave. in Atherton, where they are illegal.

In a settlement, she agreed to cease operations, but three or four years ago the town -- on behest of Ms. Young's neighbors -- investigated and discovered that she had resumed bed-and-breakfast operations, Mr. Hynes said. She was also found to be hosting numerous weddings, but no conferences or reunions, he said.

Ms. Young was charged with contempt of court, found guilty and given a suspended sentence and three years' probation.

"That was a mistake in my past," Ms. Young said.

Staff reporter Andrea Gemmet contributed to this story.

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