Jennifer Blevins, owner of Mad Dogs & Englishmen, a coffee bar and bike shop in Carmel, stands in the upper level of her business Monday, Oct. 19, surrounded by a group of mostly men in suits: an architect, another Carmel business owner, attorneys and city staff accompanying the Building Code Board of Appeals. She leads the group on a tour of her shop at the corner of Mission Street and Ocean Avenue, showing them the coffee bar before ushering them through the double doors down the stairs to the bike shop.
Blevins aims to demonstrate that, since opening her business in 2018, the occupancy and use of the building has not changed significantly, its current use permitted by the city. For the past two years, she has been in a dispute with city officials over the building’s use and whether the space requires upgrades, including fire sprinklers, a change she says could cost her more than $800,000.
“We’re over $100,000 in fees to do something the city should have done,” she says. Blevins has sought professional advice and assembled a team to challenge the city’s position, including attorney Derric Oliver; architect David Beauchamp with Fuse Architects; and Steve Guarino, a former chief of the fire and life safety division at the California State Fire Marshal’s Office.
Following the site tour was a lengthy, nearly five-hour discussion about her appeal over the city’s notice of violation. The notice alleges that, because Blevins’ use of the space had changed, the business had fire-sprinklers and restroom requirements that had not been met.
After much debate and an initial failed vote, board members unanimously agreed to return within 30 days with a resolution granting the appeal on fire sprinklers and denying it on restrooms. They will also require a fire inspection.
During the hearing, Carmel city staff’s central argument was that adding the coffee shop changed the building’s occupancy classification from mercantile/retail to an assembly use, a category that generally includes places where people gather, such as restaurants and event spaces.
Staff recommended denying the appeal, arguing the coffee shop could not be considered merely an “accessory” to the bike shop but instead constituted a separate business that increased the number of people it could accommodate.
Blevins gave a lengthy testimony presenting a timeline of correspondence with the city, arguing that problems with its permitting process had led to sometimes impractical asks. One, she said, would have prevented the coffee bar from being visible from outside, an obvious impossibility given the upper level’s almost entirely glass walls.
She said she had consistently followed the city’s instructions, obtained the necessary permits, passed health, water and electrical inspections and built according to approved plans. She maintained that the alleged violations are not supported by the work she completed and that city officials raised some of Carmel’s requirements long after the original permitting and construction.
“You know the old saying: History doesn’t repeat itself but it rhymes,” says Oliver, who represented the owner of A.W. Shucks in recent permitting disputes. “This is a significant rhyming.”