Taco Bell? Not in my back yard

Special to the Journal Sentinel

West Allis If the Taco Bell Corp. wants to open a new restaurant near the intersection of S. 108th St. and W. Cleveland Ave., it may have to open it without the chain's usual late-night hours.

Despite an hourlong presentation by the company addressing a wide range of issues, the main concerns of aldermen and the 15 residents who attended a Common Council public hearing here Tuesday night were the late hours and the problems they can bring.

The matter will be taken up by the city's Safety and Development Committee next Wednesday.

The proposal had pitted one neighborhood against another.

David Weinheimer, the city's director of planning and zoning, said the new restaurant was actually a relocation of an existing Taco Bell at the corner of S. 110th St. and W. National Ave. The old restaurant would be razed and the property sold to a developer. Deed restrictions would forbid its resale to any restaurant or fast-food chain.

Weinheimer said the 2,605- square-foot restaurant with drive-through window was permitted in the area, and that it would be open seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 2 a.m.

Pat Wulin, a resident of Mequanigo Drive, calls the big brick fence that separates her back yard from the W. National Ave. Taco Bell parking lot "my Berlin Wall."

She says it was largely because of her frequent complaining that the 11-foot-high wall was built a concession by Taco Bell to the argument that the late-night traffic, noise and trash generated by restaurant patrons were a nuisance to people who live behind it.

While the proposed move is good news for Wulin and others on Mequanigo Drive, it's bad news for David Peplinski and those who live near him, he says.

Peplinski's house on W. Cleveland Ave. is directly across from the proposed Taco Bell site. He fears that the problems in Wulin's back yard will simply be transferred to his front yard.

"I don't have air conditioning. I leave my windows open in the summer," Peplinski said. "I don't want those kids squealing in and out of there at night."

Some think a neighborhood battle is exactly what Taco Bell's attorney, former Acting Gov. Martin J. Schreiber, wants. Mequanigo Drive residents who dislike the Taco Bell on W. National Ave. said Schreiber urged them to speak at the hearing in favor of relocating it to Highway 100.

"It appears Mr. Schreiber is pitting neighbor against neighbor," said 5th District Ald. James W. Sengstock, whose district includes the Taco Bell. "He's divided the neighborhood."

Schreiber bristled at the accusation.

"Absolutely not," Schreiber responded. "That is not my intent at all. If you've looked at the site, you can see how much more neighborhood-friendly the site is." Improvements Offered

He said, for example, that the drive-through window would face Highway 100 instead of the residential area on W. Cleveland Ave. Although the restaurant would stay open until 2 a.m., just like the existing restaurant, the entrances and exits would be farther down the streets, away from the intersection. That will reduce noise problems and improve safety, he said.

Schreiber said Taco Bell was asking the city to transfer the special-use permit granted years ago for the existing Taco Bell to the new restaurant. The plan then is to have an oil change center with daytime hours open on the old Taco Bell site.

It does not appear the proposal will get Sengstock's vote. He cited a unanimous vote by the West Allis Common Council last fall against plans by Taco Bell to close a restaurant at 3191 S. 76th St. and reopen a block away at S. 76th St. and W. Oklahoma Ave. as evidence that aldermen are against such moves.

Wulin, who moved to West Allis in 1959, is delighted that company officials want to shut down the Taco Bell near her. But she is not happy that it plans to relocate so close to its current site.

"I don't want to see it divide the neighborhood," Wulin said. Late Hours a Problem

The biggest problem Wulin has had is the drive-through window's late hours, she said. Motorcycles, carloads of loud and drunken people, screeching tires and blasting car stereos have awakened her countless times, she said.

"I have things closed up at my house, but there have been times when you can actually feel the vibrations (from car stereos)," she said.

Peplinski's house is closer than any other to the proposed restaurant, which would be built on a site now used by Accurate Transmission Service, 2625 S. 108th St. (Highway 100), in a shopping center parking lot. His house would be separated from the Taco Bell by W. Cleveland Ave., which is a divided four- lane road with a median at that point.

That's farther away from a Taco Bell than Wulin's house, but not far enough for Peplinski.

"It's fine if they move it, as long as it ain't here," he said.

Journal Sentinel reporter Paul Gores contributed to this story.

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