The empty grocery store finally gets its hearing — and no November ballot measure

The single biggest thing to happen in Larkspur government this week was a workshop that produced no vote at all. For the better part of Wednesday night the council chewed over what the city can legally do about long-vacant commercial buildings — above all the former Lucky's/Albertsons grocery site, with the empty Bed Bath & Beyond and the North Magnolia shopping center also in the frame. Fourteen residents signed up to comment, more than on any other item all year.

“a tiny little pebble in their great big private equity ocean”— the Mayor, on how much Larkspur matters to the site's owners, which have passed from Kingswood Capital to the Jim Pattison Group

City Attorney Sky Woodruff laid out the two tools on the table: a special vacancy parcel tax, which would require two-thirds voter approval, or a vacant-property registration program with heightened maintenance standards the council could simply adopt by ordinance. His cautions were the heart of the night — a tax aimed at one or two named properties would likely be legally indefensible, defining and administering "vacancy" is genuinely hard, and a tax cannot be dressed up as a punishment.

Residents arrived with homework done. Resident Gan handed over a draft ordinance proposing a $5-per-square-foot vacancy tax escalating to $10 and $15 on commercial vacancies over 15,000 square feet, arguing the grocery owners are squatting on the Lucky's site rather than compete with their own nearby Safeway. Don Sommerjory made the same anti-competitive case. James Holmes supplied the counterweight, recalling that vacant Larkspur houses were rented to itinerant tenants after the Summer of Love and warning that forcing occupancy isn't automatically an improvement — be careful what you wish for.

The council's own diagnosis drifted away from vacancy itself. Council Member Pollson asked whether the problem is empty buildings or simply the absence of a grocery store, and the city manager pointed at the downtown specific plan, last updated around 2006, as the deeper issue. No action was taken. Staff will return with a combined downtown-vision-and-vacancy workshop, and the council conceded outright that there isn't time before the August 7 deadline to get anything onto the November ballot — meaning the earliest realistic vote on a vacancy tax is a future election.

Library community rooms: candidate forums yes, sales pitches no, $25 to clean up

Held over from June 3, the community-room rules at the Larkspur Library came back and passed unanimously as Resolution 5426. The package keeps staff's tiered hourly rates by room size, attaches a $25 cleaning fee to every reservation, and exempts government, library-program, nonprofit and community groups from rental fees. General-public booking opens 90 days out; standing community meetings can book monthly.

“125 bucks an hour... I'm just feeling ambivalent about charging community groups for a building.”— a council member, during the fee discussion

The hard question was political speech. Woodruff explained the limited-public-forum problem: once the city lets some political use in, it must be viewpoint-neutral toward everyone, which makes a flat ban the legally tidiest option. Council Member Kendell worried that admitting political groups could oblige the city to admit groups espousing hate speech and favored a ban for now. The mayor pushed back, noting this fall's council election will have multiple candidates for the first time since 2013 and that Larkspur has few other public rooms in which to hold a forum.

The council split the difference: political and candidate forums allowed, rentals for direct commercial sales and solicitation banned. Joanne Yaitz, speaking for Toastmasters, thanked the council for remembering her group's request and said she liked where the discussion landed.

Farm stand gets the downtown lot — one day a week, nine spaces, $50 a day

Seven written commenters and several more at the podium later, the council unanimously approved a scaled-back farm stand pilot in the downtown public parking lot. The original ask — two vendors, two days, 18 parking spaces — came out the other end as one day per week using 7 to 9 spaces, at a $50-per-day license fee, on a one-year term with a six-month check-in.

Staff had recommended downtown over the library employee lot purely on visibility: the library lot has no street frontage. One council member wanted a straight six-month trial to measure the effect on merchants and parking before committing to a year; the compromise was the six-month review baked into the longer term.

The full farmers market is deferred. The mayor reported that vendor Lynn Bagley didn't expect enough traffic with schools out and may come back in the spring with a plan for the library employee lot. Terry, a Magnolia Avenue resident, floated the private walking path behind King of the Roll or Dark Park; the mayor said that land is privately owned and the owner isn't interested, and the bike path is too narrow for the required 10-by-10 tents.