Willow Glen Resident
News
Closure of a popular passageway annoys shoppers wanting access to Lincoln Avenue
By Tiffany Carney
For years, Willow Glen shoppers could park in the lot on Minnesota Avenue and walk through a gap in the fence to reach Lincoln Avenue, but not anymore. Patrons will now have to find an alternate route.
What had been a popular walkway linking the parking lot near Siena restaurant to Lincoln Avenue is now closed. The new owner of the residential property where the pathway is located put up a fence on March 19.
John Hinton, chief financial officer for De Mattei Construction Inc., which closed escrow on the property Feb. 1, said tenants in the small apartment complex and detached home on the site were complaining of trespassing and littering.
This isn't the first time the passageway has been closed.
Over the past two years, people using the property as a cut-through have damaged and removed four gates intended to block public access, including one that the previous owner installed while the property was in escrow with De Mattei.
Customers will now be expected to trek around the block to shop.
Not everyone is pleased, including Alan Galloway, a regular at Monsieur Beans and five-year resident of Willow Glen.
"People have been going through that gap in the fence for as long as I have lived here," Galloway said.
Owner of Monsieur Beans of Willow Glen Yukimi Takamura has already collected more than 250 signatures in protest of the closure. Takamura hopes the list will prompt De Mattei to consider an alternative option.
The location catered to those customers with a backdoor entrance facing the parking lot.
"Now that the fence has been closed, what is the point of having a back door?" Takamura said.
Michael Mulcahy, president of the Willow Glen Business Association and a Lincoln Avenue business owner, said the business group does not have control over individual property rights, but is interested in being part of a discussion to see if there are ways to assure pedestrian access at that location.
As for the future of the site, Hinton said De Mattei currently has no plans to change the property.
