Chick-fil-A is causing controversy in Santa Barbara, California, where the fast food chain has been the victim of its own success. Namely, the city comes close to being called a “public nuisance” due to the long lines, which often have cars filled with hungry customers waiting outside for hours.
The diner, known for its waffle fries and chicken sandwiches, has had one restaurant in Santa Barbara since 2013, attracting a steady stream of patrons whose vehicles block nearby driveways and sidewalks and force city buses and ambulances to seek out others, city officials say. routes.
The Chick-fil-A roadway increases the likelihood of traffic accidents and pedestrian injuries. At peak traffic, the city’s traffic report blocks one lane for 90 minutes on weekdays and 155 minutes on Saturdays, according to the city’s traffic report.
“The City Highways Engineer, the Chief of Police and the Director of Community Development have assessed the situation and believe that the constant duplication of traffic on State Street is a public inconvenience and that this inconvenience is caused by the operation of the Cheek Street driveway. fil-A restaurant,” the document says.
Kristen Sneddon, a member of the Santa Barbara City Council, believes the restaurant may have outgrown its location and the problem cannot be fixed, according to the Santa Barbara News-Press. “Chick-fil-A has serious problems here. They are so successful that they have outgrown their website. They may be too big for this site to start with,” Sneddon said at a board meeting earlier this month, the newspaper reported.
At the meeting, Sneddon and other council members unanimously approved the transition to declaring potentially dangerous to society.
Representatives of Chick-fil-A asked the council to delay the announcement of the trouble and give them more time to work on fixing the problem. The council agreed to continue public hearings until 7 June.
Travis Collins, the restaurant’s franchise operator, said in a statement emailed to CBS MoneyWatch Chick-fil-A that he wants to “be a good neighbor” and continues efforts to address traffic issues. This includes hiring additional staff and third-party traffic management, he said.
Local feathers are ruffled
For some people living nearby, the traffic problem has been brewing for years, and it’s only recently that the city and the company have been paying serious attention to it.
“In the past, complaints seemed to be taken lightly,” said local resident Rick Closson in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. “Over the years you had Chick-fil-A putting together their fixes that didn’t really help much with the traffic problem. But then you have the city pushing a possibly nasty name and now the corporation is, “Oh my God, please just give us more time to work this out.”
Motor vehicle businesses are unusual in Santa Barbara, as the city has banned their construction for over four decades. But Chick-fil-A is inherited from its location, as it used to be a Burger King restaurant that didn’t have anything like the current movement.
The long car lines of Chick-fil-A are causing irritation across the country. Business owners in Toledo, Ohio; Beaumont, Texas; and Union, NJ, sued Chick-fil-A in 2020, alleging long lines are turning away their customers, according to Business Insider.
The publication reported that dozens of such complaints, police interventions and serious traffic problems related to Chick-fil-A roads have been found in more than 20 states in recent years.
In Redding, Calif., newly opened Chick-fil-A lined up a long line of cars last March, according to the local CBS affiliate, and forced police to issue a traffic warning to account for congestion outside the diner.