Events on hold at Williams-Sonoma store in Sonoma

Williams-Sonoma will have to wait to break out the champagne and cheese platters. A decision by planning officials to allow the kitchenware retailer to hold special events at its store in downtown Sonoma is being challenged by a former mayor.

Larry Barnett filed an appeal last week after the Planning Commission narrowly approved changes to a use permit to allow wine tastings, charitable events and cooking demonstrations at the 605 Broadway store, the same spot where Chuck Williams launched the business in 1956.

The events will have to be put on hold. The matter now must go before the City Council for a vote.

“I’m not anti-Williams-Sonoma,” Barnett said in a phone interview. “The issue is they don’t have adequate parking on the site for the events they want to hold.”

Planning commissioners had given the retailer temporary permission to hold up to 12 events with no more than ?60 people and three large events with no more than 80 guests over the next year, as long as the company provided off-street valet parking.

Commissioners planned to evaluate the impact on the neighborhood after a year and decide whether to let the events continue.

“We heard the feedback from the commissioners when they met and voted to approve the change of use, many of whom acknowledged our sincerity and responsiveness in addressing the city requirements,” Williams-Sonoma spokeswoman Carrie Crespo-Dixon said in an email Friday.

“We are planning to move forward with the same diligence to resolve any remaining concerns,” she added.

Barnett said planning commissioners shouldn’t have approved the permit change, arguing that special events aren’t appropriate uses for the 2,100-square-foot store and that the 1-year review “was not accompanied by any measurable criteria.” He also contended the retailer didn’t have an adequate parking and traffic mitigation plan.

A Williams-Sonoma representative has said the store planned to use a nearby post office lot for valet parking.

“It takes the whole idea of a parking requirement and tosses it out,” Barnett said of that plan. “Now you can get around the parking requirement with valet.”

A City Council hearing on Barnett’s appeal likely won’t take happen until August, said Rob Gjestland, the city’s senior planner.

While the appeal freezes the city’s broad approval for events, Gjestland said it doesn’t prevent Williams-Sonoma from seeking permission on a single-event basis, as it did with its grand opening celebration in October.

The store will also be allowed to continue using the former home and garden of its founder to display furniture. The retailer previously got into hot water after the city discovered the spaces were converted into furniture showrooms without approval.

Planning commissioners later approved the ?use during a June 11 meeting.

You can reach Staff Writer Eloísa Ruano González at 521-5458 or eloisa.gonzalez@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @eloisanews.