On a recent weekday afternoon, the loudest sounds echoing across and around South Broadway in Orcutt were the repeated pneumatic blasts of a nail gun from a construction site. Engines rumbled as trucks roared along. The occasional small, droning plane motored overhead. Otherwise, there was silence, barely broken by twitters and chirps from small birds.
It’s a different scene on weekend nights, when bands pack locals into Orcutt Brew Company, a funky place known to locals for its music, food, and brews.
Co-owners Clay and Joanne Frick—also husband and wife—explained that the more popular bands tend to bring in scores of people; 150 to 200 listeners might cycle through in an evening. Other performances lure only 50 or 75, but the vibe stays high and the music pretty much always inspires dancing. Drumbeats and wailing vocals echo up and out, rolling over the sidewalk and road and into the neighborhoods beyond.
The nights, however, will soon be as silent as the days. Aug. 8 marks the final evening concert at “The Dock”—as regulars affectionately call the establishment, referencing its beginnings as the Loading Dock. The Fricks are canceling the live music.
[image-8] The door can’t be closed
There’s a short and simple explanation behind the cancellation, at least on the surface. Clay explained that he’s planning to get a small beer manufacturer’s license, and though the establishment has sold alcohol for years as a restaurant, the new endeavor necessitated a new permit from the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.
A new permit meant new notices to locals and neighbors, opening the door for potential challenges to the license. If anyone had a problem with the setup, they could speak up. And someone did.
Leslie Pond, the primary contact for the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control’s San Luis Obispo and Ventura offices—which cover Santa Barbara County, too—said the department received a protest letter from a neighbor.
Pond went on to explain that the law allows his department to apply restrictions on a license that would otherwise be denied for one reason or another, such as neighbors within 100 feet of the establishment, as is the case with Orcutt Brew Company. One of the conditions on the Fricks’ potential permit is a good-neighbor sound policy. That doesn’t mean there can’t be live music, it simply means the music can’t spread beyond the property.
“Our position is, you can have Van Halen playing in there if we can’t hear him,” Pond said.
Joanne explained that they’d always tried to keep sound levels at the brewpub consistent with Santa Barbara County ordinances, but the conditions on the potential license are prompting them to rethink their setup.
“The way they put it is we couldn’t interrupt the peaceful enjoyment of [neighbors’] property,” Clay said, describing the department-imposed conditions on their brewing license.
“In this tin building, it’s physically impossible to do something like that,” Joanne said.
The glittering ceiling bounces sounds around, and there’s not much insulation to keep it from echoing beyond the metal walls.
Lt. George Gingras, who works out of the Santa Maria sheriff’s substation, explained that the Sheriff’s Department typically handles noise complaints on county land. He reported that the department has received “isolated complaints of noise” regarding Orcutt Brew, but nothing ever necessitated taking the issue farther than checking in.
Joanne said that after complaints came in from as far away as May Grisham Elementary, they added what padding and sound-dampening materials they could find to the front—an effort that proved effective at shortening the noise radius, though not enough to satisfy everyone in the current licensing go-round.
“We’d have to insulate the heck out of this building,” Joanne said, noting that such a project wouldn’t just be a lot of work—it would change the building’s character.
The choice rapidly became clear to the Fricks: The music had to stop.
“Some people are saying, “Don’t brew, and keep the license you have now,” Joanne said. “But [we] can’t do anything about it now.”
The ball, in other words, is in motion, and even halting the brewing project—something they’re not going to do—wouldn’t help at this point.
“We were upset for a while,” Joanne said.
“Joanne was really upset,” Clay jokingly corrected. “I was relieved that we’d still be able to make beer.”
Several of the Loading Dock’s nearest residential neighbors—some living behind the block walls and tentatively creeping vines of the nascent StoneGate development—said they could easily hear the music from Orcutt Brew’s recent evening concerts, but it didn’t bother them. One even admitted to sitting in the backyard to listen. Not everyone, however, enjoyed the bands.
“I won’t be sorry to see that,” one neighbor said after learning the next concert would be the last for Orcutt Brew—adding that the noise could be “quite raucous” until 11:30 p.m.
Local musicians, however, are very sorry.
Where now?
Angel Rivera is the band manager and keyboardist for Soulamente, a Santa Maria-area group that’s been playing at the Loading Dock’s various incarnations since 2004. When he heard that the Orcutt stage would no longer be open for guitars and drums, he was shocked.
“Live music is dying down in Santa Maria due to bureaucracy,” he said.
He’s not just being dramatic, though the wilting band scene isn’t only being strangled by red tape. Money is also a factor. A couple of months ago, Maverick Saloon and Grill in Santa Maria closed its doors. No more live bands.
“We were going to start at Garibaldi’s, but it shut down,” Rivera said, lamenting the recent loss of another Santa Maria restaurant and music venue.
“The economy hit us pretty bad,” admitted Garibaldi’s co-owner Lupe Chavez.
But to musicians—and music fans—the results are the same, whether due to permitting processes or vanishing bottom lines: “There’s nowhere else to go,” Rivera said.
“Even our fans [say], ‘Where are we going to see you guys?” he added.
Swing Shift is another Orcutt Brew regular. Leader Bernie Espinoza, who sings and plays harmonica, said the band has been around in one form or another since 1991. They started out from a Lompoc garage with a sort of Tex-Mex country sound and have evolved into something more eclectic.
“We do everything,” Espinoza said.
Over a pint of Hefeweizen at the pub, he explained that losing Orcutt Brew as a venue will be tough on his group, but not as tough as it will be on up-and-comers.
“Me? Our band? We’ve been established for a lot of years,” he said. “It’ll be hard, but we’ll try. … We’ll have to go out of town quite a bit.”
That means driving Swing Shift to San Luis Obispo, Fresno, or L.A. for gigs.
“We’ve done that before,” he said, “but I’d rather not make a habit of it, you know? The cost of gas and so on. … It’s gonna be rough.”
New bands, however, “they’re the guys who are really going to have to get creative,” he said.
Espinoza admitted that there are other places to play in the area: a deli here, a store there. Such chances to connect with audiences are great, he reasoned, but they’re not Orcutt Brew.
“We love this,” he said, gesturing toward the stage. “This is home. This is home. … Our band members always felt like we were taken care of here.
“Now, we’re going to have a vacuum to fill.”
Soulamente’s Rivera echoed Espinoza’s ideas of casting a wider net. And while such a wide range may satisfy the band members’ need to play, it can leave audiences behind.
“There’s nothing else out there in Santa Maria that we can go [to] and our fans can come check us out,” he said.
He mentioned Mongo’s in Grover Beach as a potential stage, but even that could be too long of a drive for locals.
“It’s unfair to the people of Santa Maria,” he summed up.
Something brewing
On a recent sunny afternoon, Orcutt Brew co-owner Joanne explained that when her family bought the establishment in 2007, they also inherited the live music. The former coffee shop started bringing in bands two owners prior. The Fricks hadn’t been planning on music, but they decided to not change what appeared to be a good thing.
That good thing built and grew throughout 2008, until bands were booking gigs half a year in advance and they had to add another night to accommodate the performances. Lines wrapped around the building on weekend evenings.
They’re now calling the results “too much rock at the Dock.”
She and Clay are certainly sympathetic to neighbors who might not enjoy evening strains of Otis Redding and Santana covers as much as the dancers inside the pub—“It’s not like they’re picking on us,” Clay reasoned—but Joanna wishes that everyone could have reached a compromise. A small jazz combo on the grass on a Saturday afternoon is technically off the table at this point. So are weddings with music on speakers, such as the one held on the property a couple of weeks ago. They’re keeping an “unplugged” series and might try karaoke, but only if it doesn’t waft beyond the sidewalk.
The problem is that there’s no buffer zone between the business and the nearest houses.
“It’s a great location, but it’s a pain,” Joanne said.
She admitted that the loss of live music is going to be a blow to the establishment, but knows they’ll get by.
“In this economy, we’re struggling, but we’re doing OK,” she said. “Luckily, our food and our weekly sales have increased substantially, so we’re not as scared of what it could do.”
Their plan for the venue’s evolution is also giving them hope.
Clay excitedly explained that Orcutt Brew Company is going to make the full transition to a brewpub, showing every sport possible on Sundays and offering his soon-to-be-crafted American-style beers—after as the licensing goes through.
Diners will get to sip what Clay called “regular ales,” including an IPA pale and a dark ale.
Will local beer and occasional acoustic melodies fill the void left behind by bands? Not exactly, but the Fricks hope the change will go over well with residents seeking a place to settle in for a good brew with friends.
They also hope someone will pick up the torch for the sake of the local music scene. Clay said he’s ready and willing to share his knowledge with the heir to the band throne: tips on the frequency of band performances, contact lists, and other information.
In the meantime, local musicians are just going to have to leave town when they want to perform.
Contact Executive Editor Ryan Miller at rmiller@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Aug 6-13, 2009.