Ready to dance? Solution to the long-running Woody’s Wharf dispute could come Tuesday

The roughly two-year legal saga between Woody’s Wharf and the city of Newport Beach in which the restaurant sought to overturn limits on dancing and use of its patio could be coming to an end, but many nearby residents aren’t enthusiastic about proposed changes.

The Newport Beach City Council on Tuesday is expected to consider several changes to the Balboa Peninsula restaurant’s conditional use permit that would allow it to open a half-hour earlier each day and enable patrons to use the adjacent boat dock ramp to drink, eat and smoke until 8 p.m., which was previously not permitted.

Also among the suggested changes: On Thursday nights and up to 12 additional nights per year, dancing would be allowed inside the restaurant and the closing time of the outdoor dining area would be extended from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m.

Woody’s currently is allowed to have dancing inside the restaurant on Fridays and Saturdays and use the patio until 2 a.m. on those nights. The council’s decision on the permit would not affect that.

The council had been expected to vote on the issue during its Sept. 22 meeting but postponed action because Councilman Marshall “Duffy” Duffield was absent, according to a city spokeswoman.

If approved, the permit would not have the condition that the restaurant’s patio be covered, which the city previously required to help control noise from people congregating on the water side of the restaurant, officials said.

Mark Serventi, one of the restaurant’s owners, expressed satisfaction with the proposed changes.

“We’re just trying to move forward and try to run our business the right way,” Serventi said. “It’s important for us and for the city to get this behind us.”

However, residents of a nearby condominium complex that boasts views of Newport Harbor are asking the City Council to reconsider altering the permit.

Resident Laith Ezzet wrote in a letter to the council that Woody’s Wharf “has been a constant nuisance” during the 20 years she has lived at the 28th Street Marina complex.

“I have observed drunks from the establishment walk out of Woody’s and into our parking garage and urinate in our parking garage,” she wrote. “The noise from Woody’s during the particularly loud summer months has forced me to leave town on many weekends to avoid a sleepless night in Newport next to Woody’s.”

Serventi took issue with residents’ assertions that his restaurant exceeds city noise standards, pointing to two noise studies — one by the city and the other commissioned by the restaurant — that led city staff to conclude that Woody’s did not contribute to the total noise environment on Newport Boulevard.

“They’re trying to say we’re afflicting the neighborhood, but frankly, I don’t see it,” he said.

Woody’s Wharf and the city went to court in 2013 after the council — which included four members who are no longer on the panel — denied permits for the restaurant to offer dancing and extended patio hours.

In September that year, the city Planning Commission approved extending the hours and issued a permit for dancing. However, the City Council overturned that decision a month later on appeal by then-Councilman Mike Henn. The case made its way from Orange County Superior Court to a three-judge panel of California’s 4th District Court of Appeal, which reversed a decision by the lower court and allowed patrons to dance at the restaurant.

The council’s public hearing on the proposed permit changes is scheduled for its regular meeting Tuesday, which begins at 7 p.m. at City Hall, 100 Civic Center Drive.