By Andrea Gemmet
Almanac Staff Writer
Has the malingering dispute over the operating hours of Woodside’s Little Store restaurant reached the end of the road?
Neighboring property owner Steve Peterson’s lawsuit to limit the historic restaurant’s hours was denied by a state appeals court on January 23, a year after being shot down by San Mateo County Superior Court.
According to Mr. Peterson’s complaint, allowing the Little Store on Woodside Road to serve breakfast, rather than just lunch and dinner, is an illegal expansion of the business, and the traffic and noise it generates has a huge impact on the neighborhood.
The historic restaurant has operated at 3340 Woodside Road for more than 100 years, long before Woodside incorporated as a town in 1956.
Although it would be illegal to open a restaurant in a residentially zoned part of Woodside today, the Little Store’s operation is grandfathered as a “legal nonconforming use” that allows it to stay in business.
In 2003, Mr. Peterson filed a lawsuit called a writ of mandate that asked the court to overturn an opinion by the Woodside Town Council finding that the Little Store, operated by Lynn and Dick Eastley, isn’t required to limit its hours.
The dispute over the Little Store’s hours has been going on since 1999, when the previous operators asked the Planning Commission to overturn a decision by then-town planner David Rizk that prevented them from opening for breakfast and on Sundays.
The owners of the property, Marcel and Kay Mouney, and the restaurant’s operators argued that, through the years, the restaurant’s hours shifted, and at times it was open seven days a week, even for breakfast.
The Planning Commission overruled Mr. Rizk, and directed the two parties to enter mediation. Needless to say, the mediation was not successful.
Chief Justice James Lambden, who wrote the opinion of the state court of appeal’s first appellate district, found that there was substantial evidence to show that the town had never placed any formal restriction on the Little Store’s hours of operation.
“(Mr.) Peterson devotes most of his argument in his brief to citing the statements by residents that (the Little Store) was not open during breakfast hours and to quarreling with the credibility and quality of the statements to the contrary,” he wrote in his decision. “The Town Council did not find that (the Little Store) was open any specific hours. Rather, it concluded that historically the hours of operation were not consistent and therefore permitting the restaurant to be open for breakfast seven days a week did not constitute a change.”
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