Palm Desert drive-thru ban upheld after city council rejects changes

A decades-old ban on drive-thrus in most of Palm Desert will remain in place after city council rejected a proposal to modify it Thursday night.

The proposal would have enabled drive-thrus to be built, under certain restrictions, along areas of Highway 111 and Fred Waring Drive. It addressed environmental concerns, countered drive-thru oversaturation, and required design standards to be met.

But after city council's 3-2 vote rejecting any modifications to the existing drive-thru ban, it will remain in place everywhere in the city except for commercial areas near Interstate 10.

Local restaurants called in to the meeting worried about the threat of competition. "I believe that the presence of corporate fast food drive-thrus would be a threat to (restaurants)," said Case Hutchinson, owner of JC's Cafe on El Paseo. "They could be put out of business."

City leaders expressed concerns that existing non-drive-thru fast food franchises would become non-competitive as a result of modifying the ban. Mayor Kathleen Kelly said, "Those franchises would seek a new location where drive-thru is permitted and we would end up with several empty structures difficult to fill."

Council members Gina Nestande and Karina Quintanilla were in favor of modifying the ban. Nestande pushed for fewer limits than what had been proposed by city staff. "We need to give our residents a choice," she said. "For those who want to do a drive-thru, they can have that option but not to go drive 5 to 6 miles to the 10 freeway."

Patrick Wood, a developer and CEO of Wood Investments, hopes to breathe new life into the Palm to Pines shopping center on Highway 111, which is currently home to a closed Chase Bank building. He was working toward putting in a new Raising Canes drive-thru. "Everybody's trying to get as much traffic in as they can and this is a huge traffic generator," Wood said.

Despite a landscaping design that earned council members' approval, Woods' plan must now return to the drawing board. "It does not eliminate greenhouse gasses and it does not protect our air quality​," said Mayor Pro Tem Jan Harnik.

Harnik added that if someone is desperate for one, a drive-thru is just a short drive away. "There is no shortage of drive-thrus in Palm Desert and the Coachella Valley," she said.

City council directed staff to look at the ordinances that allow drive-thrus near Interstate 10 to potentially explore adding more of them in that area.