Langsam

The City of Sausalito appeals from the judgment of the superior court granting the petition for a peremptory writ of mandate ordering *874 the city to issue a building permit to petitioners for the remodeling of the second floor of a building to create offices. We affirm the judgment.

Petitioners and respondents Martin Langsam and Donald K. Olsen (petitioners) are, respectively, the owner and the architect for the Marin Theatre Building located on Caledonia Street in the City of Sausalito. The building was constructed in 1914 and has been owned by the Langsam family for 70 years. Mr. Langsam is a lifetime resident of Marin County. He was raised in Sausalito and his principal business is there. The property had been in use for almost two decades when Sausalito enacted its first zoning ordinance in 19-31. Since World War. II a movie theatre has operated on the ground floor of the building while the upper floor has been used as a storage area.

On February 16,1984, petitioners applied to the city for a building permit to convert 3,000 square feet of the second floor of the Marin Theatre Building to office space. No exterior alteration, structural alteration or expansion to…

I write separately to emphasize why Leslie Salt Co. v. San Francisco Bay Conservation etc. Com. (1984) 153 Cal.App.3d 605 [ 200 Cal.Rptr. 575 ], which is heavily relied upon by the city, does not apply to this case.

*883 Leslie Salt stands for the proposition that a critical word or phrase will not be judicially assigned a meaning that would defeat the clear purpose of the statute in which it appears. The city seizes upon the case, and others upon which it relies, in the course of arguing that the lower court’s interpretation of the offstreet parking ordinance involved in this case would frustrate that ordinance.

I quite agree that the furnishing of adequate offstreet parking—the purpose of the ordinance—will not be materially advanced by the trial court’s reading of the measure, which we approve; for the removal of 90 seats from a theatre used primarily on weekends and evenings will not reduce parking needs generated on weekdays by the new offices. However, as much as my colleagues or I might like to fix this problem, Leslie Salt does not authorize us to do so.

The rules of statutory construction involved in Leslie Salt permit the courts to fill in such interstices in the law…

The City of Sausalito appeals from the judgment of the superior court granting the petition for a peremptory writ of mandate ordering the city to issue a building permit to petitioners for the remodeling of the second floor of a building to create offices. We affirm the judgment.

Petitioners and respondents Martin Langsam and Donald K. Olsen (petitioners) are, respectively, the owner and the architect for the Marin Theatre Building located on Caledonia Street in the City of Sausalito. The building was constructed in 1914 and has been owned by the Langsam family for 70 years. Mr. Langsam is a lifetime resident of Marin County. He was raised in Sausalito and his principal business is there. The property had been in use for almost two decades when Sausalito enacted its first zoning ordinance in 1931. Since World War II a movie theatre has operated on the ground floor of the building while the upper floor has been used as a storage area.

On February 16, 1984, petitioners applied to the city for a building permit to convert 3,000 square feet of the second floor of the Marin Theatre Building to office space. No exterior alteration, structural alteration or…