Property owner Greg Pinn wants to open the restaurant at 7 a.m. and extend its closing time to 11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and until midnight Friday and Saturday. Current restaurant hours are 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. For Hotel Los Gatos to be considered a four-star hotel, it needs to meet certain criteria, such as the hours of providing restaurant service.

Opening in December 2002, the hotel and restaurant were allowed to serve breakfast within the hotel lobby, outdoor seating area and banquet room. Since the restaurant does not have a banquet room, which was the original plan, Pinn is asking the town to amend its use permit to include the general seating area as a place to serve breakfast.

"I don't believe we're doing anything outrageous," Pinn said to planning commissioners last week. The planning commission had a chance to review the application before forwarding it to the town council, which will make a final decision in a future meeting.

Philip Farrer, general manager of Hotel Los Gatos, said the restaurant has had to turn people away for breakfast.

"We'd just like to have it as a service," said Farrer, who estimated that no more than 10 additional people would travel to the restaurant on weekday mornings, thus resulting in little traffic impact.

Despite those words, Commissioner Joanne Talesfore voiced concerns that people driving there for breakfast would add to the existing congestion problem on E. Main Street during morning commutes. Los Gatos High School sits across from the restaurant.

Assistant planning director Tom Williams said Los Gatos High had been notified about Pinn's application for extending restaurant hours and that the school has not indicated how it feels about the proposal.

The day after the meeting, Los Gatos High School Principal Trudy McCulloch said she was not aware that the town is considering extending Kuleto's hours.

"I could see that that would be a huge traffic impact in the morning," she said. "It would be another burden."

Restaurant customers often use the school's parking spots in the evening, McCulloch said. During the daytime, certain spots around the school are restricted for those with school permits.

Farrer said the restaurant has its own parking lot for customers and that it only fills up during weekends when school is not in session.

Besides requesting increased restaurant hours, Pinn is asking the town to allow the spa to open its doors to the public, not just to hotel guests, as is currently the case. The proposed hours of operation are 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. weekdays and 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. on weekends. The only change would be to Monday's operation hours, which are currently 2 to 10 p.m.

"We're drowning. We want to get some people in there and make this survive," Pinn said.

Pinn's last request to the town was that it reduce the length of time the hotel must give advance notice to the police department regarding hosting events of 100 or more people. The existing use permit requires a 30-day advance consultation period. The police department has agreed to two weeks instead.

Commissioner Phil Micciche made the motion to recommend to the town council that it approve Pinn's requests, with conditions that the applicant pay traffic mitigation fees, that the number of clients the spa serves at any given time is limited to its current size and that the town annually monitor traffic.

The commission approved the motion 4-1, with commissioners Jeanne Drexel absent and Morris Trevithick recusing himself because he is a member of the church next to the hotel.

Commissioner Michael Burke dissented, because he objected to the idea of businesses with late-night hours moving farther away from the core of the downtown area. The restaurant "went in with eyes wide open" that 10 p.m. is the typical closing time in Los Gatos, he said.