Long struggle with Uptown neighbors is over after City Council rejects his request
Greg Sonnier's five-year battle to open a restaurant in Uptown New Orleans took him to the Department of Safety and Permits, the Board of Zoning Adjustments, Civil District Court, the City Planning Commission and the City Council. It even led him to make a quixotic run for a council seat himself.
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Acknowledging that his five-year battle to open a restaurant in a building he owns Uptown on Henry Clay Avenue is over, chef Greg Sonnier said, 'We'd like to move on.'It all ended last week when the council rejected his request for a zoning change to let him operate a restaurant at 438 Henry Clay Ave.
Acknowledging this week that the battle is over, Sonnier said, "We'd like to move on."
Sonnier's problems began when Hurricane Katrina flooded Gabrielle, the acclaimed restaurant he and his wife, Mary, had operated on Esplanade Avenue for 13 years.
In March 2006 they paid $550,000 for the building on unflooded Henry Clay Avenue, which was near their home and which had been operating as a reception hall. They planned to make it a full-time restaurant, the new Gabrielle.
However, neighbors led by former Councilman Eddie Sapir and lawyer Michael Sherman, a former Sapir aide, immediately began trying to block their plans, saying the site was zoned for residential use and that opening a restaurant there would cause the neighborhood many problems, especially with parking.
The battle went on for years at neighborhood meetings, in court and before various city boards, with the neighbors winning almost every round. There were endless arguments about what the Sonniers believed, or should have believed, they could do with the property when they bought it, and about whether a restaurant attracting 80 customers every night would create more parking problems than a reception hall drawing as many as 250 people for occasional events.
Sonnier got so angry and frustrated that he even ran for an at-large council seat in 2010, pledging that if elected he would push for a zoning law "that makes perfectly clear what commercial properties can and cannot be used for." He finished fifth in a seven-candidate field, getting 2 percent of the vote.
At last week's council meeting, revered local restaurateur Leah Chase and food writer Lorin Gaudin spoke for the Sonniers. Gaudin said what had happened to them was "a complete travesty of justice" and "someone has to make these people whole."
Sonnier said Gabrielle had no off-street parking on Esplanade and appeared to cause no problems for neighbors there.
But Sapir and other neighbors said the restaurant would create nightly problems in a neighborhood where most residents have to park on the streets and that already is home to two other popular restaurants. They said it would violate the city's master plan and would lead to more inappropriate rezoning requests. They said there are numerous properly zoned sites, including on nearby streets such as Magazine, where Gabrielle could open with no problems.
Councilwoman Susan Guidry, whose district includes the site, said she used to eat at Gabrielle and called Sonnier an "immense culinary talent," but she moved to deny his request, saying the Henry Clay site is not appropriate for a restaurant. Despite his claims to the contrary, Guidry said, Sonnier had no reason to believe it could be used as a restaurant when he bought it.
Other council members also praised Sonnier. "We need your talent here," President Arnie Fielkow told him.
Councilwoman Stacy Head urged him to open a restaurant in her district. Jackie Clarkson told him to put it in Algiers, where she lives, and Jon Johnson said, "Come on out to New Orleans east."
The council then voted 6-0 to deny Sonnier's request. Kristin Gisleson Palmer recused herself because her brother represents a neighborhood association involved in the dispute.
Sonnier said this week he'd like to sell the Henry Clay property but fears he can't as long as a lawsuit filed during the dispute by Sherman, now an assistant to Mayor Mitch Landrieu, is still pending in Civil District Court.
Even if he does sell it, Sonnier said, he expects to take "a huge financial hit" because it now is clear the property cannot be used as a restaurant, even though he continues to operate a catering operation there, mostly for events at other sites but with occasional receptions in the building.
As for the invitations from council members to move Gabrielle to their districts, Sonnier said, "I took them with a grain of salt."
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Bruce Eggler can be reached at beggler@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3320.