BUENA PARK : VFW Post Fighting on Home Front

After more than three years of struggle, members of the Veterans of Foreign War Post 8954 thought their problems were about over.

Forced out of their Homewood Avenue headquarters because of a neighborhood dispute, they had finally found a new place to call home. It had everything they wanted--ample parking, enough space to hold their monthly meetings, a fair price--and it met city requirements.

But on the eve of getting final city permission to move into the new hall, the beleagueredpost now faces a new challenger. Members of Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park have come forward to say they don’t want the veterans as neighbors. It’s not the vets they don’t like, church officials say, just the company they keep.

“We do not object to the post,” Pastor Wiley Drake said. “Even though we are anti-booze, if they want to have a bar in their club, that is their business. We object to having a bar and renting it to the public for a party house.”

This eleventh-hour objection has left the veterans confused, bitter and wondering what to do next. They have spent more than $7,000 on permits and other city-imposed requirements preparing for the move. With their savings slowly dwindling, they cannot afford to go through the process again, club officials said.

“We are starting to feel we can’t go anywhere in the city of Buena Park,” Post Cmrd. John Hood said. “We are going to start back at square one. You might as well shut our doors. It has broken us.”

The unassuming clubhouse on Homewood Avenue has been a city fixture since 1964. Here veterans from all around the county have gathered to tell war stories, raise money for charity and share friendships.

The trouble started about three years ago when residents began complaining that rowdy party-goers renting the hall for weddings and other occasions left a trail of trash, noise and even violence. They told tales of people urinating in their yards and of fights erupting in the streets late into the night. Then there was a drive-by shooting.

No one was injured in the fray, but the residents protested at City Hall. After a number of hearings, a year ago the Planning Commission ordered the veterans to get out. Under an agreement, the group was allowed to stay until a new location was found, but was forbidden from renting to outside parties.

Since then city officials have been working with the veterans to find them a new headquarters and even bought their clubhouse for $100,000. Their current choice--renting a commercial center on Western Avenue--came with staff endorsement.

The Planning Commission was set to vote on the issue last month, but postponed the decision after the church protested.

The veterans’ troubled past continues to haunt them, Hood said. “Right now they only see the bad. They don’t see any of the good we’ve done.”

Although the church is not located next door to the proposed new site for the hall, the meeting place is close to a rear section of the church property where children often have weekend camp-outs, say church officials who do not want the post in their back yard.

Club officials say they have considered other sources of raising money, but haven’t been able to find anything as profitable as renting out the hall to others. Besides, on top of their regular expenses, they will now have monthly rent to pay. “We are going from a place we own to a place we rent. If there is no way to rent the hall, we are dead in the water,” Hood said.

The city staff is trying to find another solution before the issue goes before the Planning Commission April 22.

“We are trying to work with the VFW as well as the senior pastor of the church to reach some type of resolution,” senior planner Leslie Kyle said. “We are looking at making things work at that site or finding an alternative location.”