Four months after scooter shop Revolution Moto departed downtown Santa Rosa in a huff over parking issues, another downtown business has pulled up stakes citing the city's parking enforcement policies.
Anil's Majaraja Lounge, an upscale Indian restaurant located at the western end of Fourth Street, closed late last month after five years.
Owner Anil Bembey says he is moving his restaurant to San Francisco following a series of slights - from parking tickets to burned-out tree lights - he feels he has suffered at the hands of city officials.
"This restaurant was closed due to very poor treatment to merchants by the city officials," reads the "Public Notice" Bembey placed outside his business after shutting it down Feb. 23. "Eleven jobs were lost due to this closure."
Bembey, a 50-year-old New Delhi native, portrays city officials as insensitive to the needs of merchants and inflexible when it comes to enforcing "impractical and counterproductive city ordinances."
The economy is responsible for a good portion of his pain, he said. A lengthy billing dispute with PG&E, graffiti problems and the closure of neighboring businesses haven't helped, either.
But Bembey feels city officials deserve some of the blame for his restaurant's demise.
"This city is run by a group of incompetent, self-serving and clueless people," Bembey wrote in an e-mail to supporters.
Parking enforcement in the city-owned lot behind his building, which he has owned since 2003, is one of Bembey's biggest beefs.
Revolution Moto owners Roy and Johnna Gattinella had a similar run-in with the city, moving their scooter business after they were cited for parking scooters in front of their shop.
Bembey says he has received six tickets in the last year, four $25 tickets for parking in a loading zone and two $35 tickets for parking in a red zone, he said. Bembey said he used to be allowed to park in the loading zone behind his business for up to 24 minutes. But last year the city began ticketing him while he unloaded groceries for the restaurant from his personal vehicle.
He complained, and was told such zones are for vehicles with commercial licenses only. He lobbied for building owners to be given their own spots, to no avail.
Bembey says he also tried in vain to get the city to improve the lighting in front of the restaurant, but got the runaround. After first getting no help from the defunct downtown promotional group Santa Rosa Main Street, Bembey said he asked city officials to extend tree lights to his dark corner of Fourth Street.
Most of the honey locust trees along Fourth Street are decorated year-round with strings of white lights. But the lights end just before they reach his restaurant.
"People stop and turn around. They think there's nothing else down here," Bembey said.
Bembey sought to have the lights extended into the redwood trees in front of his business, but to little avail. First the city said the circuits were maxed out, said Lisa Grant, parks superintendent. Then Grant agreed to install a set of lights that Bembey purchased, but he bought unacceptable colored lights, she said. The city installed a set of white outdoor lights, but the timer wasn't synched correctly. Then after a rain they shorted out. Twice. He estimates they only actually worked for fewer than 10 days.
Grant said she understands Bembey's frustration, but denied the city was unresponsive.
"Every time that he notified me that the lights were out we made an attempt to figure out why," she said.
Bembey said he gave up after Grant told him she was working on a plan to replace the lights downtown with energy-efficient LED lights, perhaps over the summer. Then he got another parking ticket and he threw in the towel.
"I realized that things weren't going to change," he said.
City Councilman John Sawyer, owner of Sawyers News on Fourth Street, met with Bembey and is sympathetic to his plight.
"He is not alone in his frustration," Sawyer said.
There is a tendency for business owners to blame others for the challenges they face, and that could be part of the dynamic at work. But the city also needs to pay more attention to the issues struggling business owners face, he said.
"We as a city need to look at his story and see what we can learn from his experience and where we can adjust our policies to help struggling businesses achieve success in our downtown and throughout Santa Rosa," Sawyer said.
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