LA's Restaurant Alcohol Fast Track: 450 Applications, Mapped (2022-2026)
Los Angeles has approved 377 of the 450 Restaurant Beverage Program applications filed since June 2022, which is 83.8% of them. The City publishes no count of its own, so this one is ours: every bi-weekly filing report it has posted, and then every case page behind them.
2026 is the first year more restaurants took the fast route than the standard one: 121 program filings against 83 conditional use filings, both counted to October 31, 2026 and so both short of a full year.
About this data
- Where it comes from
- City Planning's own bi-weekly case reports and case pages
- What it covers
- June 2022 to October 31, 2026
- Cases read
- 450, one page at a time
- Last checked
- November 5, 2026
- Applications
- 450
- Filed through the program between June 2022 and October 31, 2026.
- Approved or authorized
- 377
- 83.8% of the applications. The case page prints either word and this page counts both.
- Median, filing to decision
- 51 days
- Across all 377 approved cases, in calendar days as the case pages print them.
- Base application fee
- $2,207
- Against $19,418 for the standard conditional use application, before surcharges on either.
How much the program has been used
450 applications in four and a half years, and 377 of them have an approval or an authorization printed on the case page. 66 show no decision at all, which is mostly this year: 55 of them were filed in 2026 and are presumably still in the queue.
The year-by-year table counts cases by the year they were FILED, so the approval column is how many of that year's filings have since gone through rather than how many decisions the City made that year. 2026 is partial in both columns.
Against the standard route the direction is the thing rather than any one year. 2022: 56 program filings against 118 conditional use filings. 2026: 121 against 83. Both are counted by the year in the case number, from the same reports.
Inside one calendar window the same shape holds: 61 program filings between February 23 and October 31 of 2025, and 107 in the same window of 2026. That window is the one the February 2026 fee change opened, and this is a count of filings either side of it rather than a finding about why.
| Filed in | Applications | Approved so far | No decision shown | Median days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 57 | 54 | 2 | 41.5 days |
| 2023 | 85 | 82 | 1 | 44 days |
| 2024 | 101 | 95 | 4 | 62 days |
| 2025 | 86 | 81 | 4 | 44 days |
| 2026 (to October 31, 2026) | 121 | 65 | 55 | 58 days |
Where the applications are
Every case address was placed with the City's own address index and joined to the official Council District and Community Plan Area layers, so each point below is a real address rather than a district's centre.
A zero is a count of applications, not a statement about eligibility. Which parcels the program reaches is set by the City's own eligible-area map, which it publishes as an image rather than as data, so nothing on this page says where the program is or is not available.
- Approved or authorized
- No decision shown, pending, withdrawn or closed
By Council District
CD 5 has the most applications, at 78. CD 1 and CD 9 have none at all, and CD 8 has one.
| Council District | Applications | Approved |
|---|---|---|
| CD 1 | 0 | 0 |
| CD 2 | 22 | 18 |
| CD 3 | 23 | 20 |
| CD 4 | 62 | 56 |
| CD 5 | 78 | 67 |
| CD 6 | 8 | 8 |
| CD 7 | 7 | 3 |
| CD 8 | 1 | 1 |
| CD 9 | 0 | 0 |
| CD 10 | 57 | 49 |
| CD 11 | 63 | 50 |
| CD 12 | 21 | 20 |
| CD 13 | 77 | 59 |
| CD 14 | 14 | 11 |
| CD 15 | 17 | 15 |
By Community Plan Area
City Planning's layer holds 36 plan areas. Wilshire has the most at 99, and Boyle Heights, Los Angeles International Airport, Port of Los Angeles, and South Los Angeles have none. Bel Air - Beverly Crest, Sun Valley - La Tuna Canyon, and Sylmar have one each.
Two of the empty ones are not places anybody lives: the layer carries Los Angeles International Airport and the Port of Los Angeles as plan areas of their own. The other two are not.
Showing 36 of 36 plan areas
Wilshire
99 applications, 83 approved
Hollywood
74 applications, 63 approved
Sherman Oaks - Studio City - Toluca Lake - Cahuenga Pass
37 applications, 34 approved
Silver Lake - Echo Park - Elysian Valley
20 applications, 17 approved
Venice
19 applications, 14 approved
West Los Angeles
19 applications, 17 approved
North Hollywood - Valley Village
17 applications, 13 approved
Encino - Tarzana
16 applications, 13 approved
Palms - Mar Vista - Del Rey
16 applications, 13 approved
Northeast Los Angeles
15 applications, 12 approved
Canoga Park - Winnetka - Woodland Hills - West Hills
13 applications, 12 approved
Chatsworth - Porter Ranch
12 applications, 11 approved
Westchester - Playa del Rey
12 applications, 10 approved
Brentwood - Pacific Palisades
11 applications, 9 approved
San Pedro
11 applications, 10 approved
Northridge
8 applications, 8 approved
Westwood
7 applications, 5 approved
West Adams - Baldwin Hills - Leimert
6 applications, 5 approved
Westlake
6 applications, 4 approved
Arleta - Pacoima
4 applications, 4 approved
Downtown
4 applications, 3 approved
Van Nuys - North Sherman Oaks
4 applications, 4 approved
Harbor Gateway
3 applications, 3 approved
Mission Hills - Panorama City - North Hills
3 applications, 2 approved
Wilmington - Harbor City
3 applications, 2 approved
Granada Hills - Knollwood
2 applications, 2 approved
Reseda - West Van Nuys
2 applications, 2 approved
Southeast Los Angeles
2 applications, 0 approved
Sunland - Tujunga - Lake View Terrace - Shadow Hills - East La Tuna Canyon
2 applications, 0 approved
Bel Air - Beverly Crest
1 applications, 1 approved
Sun Valley - La Tuna Canyon
1 applications, 1 approved
Sylmar
1 applications, 0 approved
Boyle Heights
0 applications, 0 approved
Los Angeles International Airport
0 applications, 0 approved
Port of Los Angeles
0 applications, 0 approved
South Los Angeles
0 applications, 0 approved
Sort any column by clicking its heading. A plan area with no applications shows a zero and no share, because there is nothing to take a share of.
How long it takes
In the case records a Restaurant Beverage Program application ran a median of 51 days from filing to the action date, across all 377 approved cases. A restaurant conditional use case ran 162.5 days, from a random sample of 70 rather than from every case, so the second figure is an estimate of scale beside a count.
The middle half of program cases ran 33 days to 89 days. 86 of them, which is 22.8%, were done inside a month, and 341, which is 90.5%, inside six. The slowest took 1405 days and the fastest has the same date in both fields.
The City's own statement of each is on its fact sheet: the program takes "about one month from application filing to receiving authorization to sell and serve alcoholic beverages" and the standard route "at least six months from application filing to receiving issuance of the written Letter of Determination". Those are the City's words and its own clock.
- Both counts run from the case's own Case Filed On date to the date of the action printed on the same page, in calendar days. For a program case that is the administrative action date; for a conditional use case it is the Zoning Administrator's action date.
- That the action date is the authorization or determination date is a reading of the label. Neither field is defined on the page.
- The program's clock may start late. City Planning's workflow says a planner checks eligibility first and then generates a case number, so if the filing date is set at that step the applicant's wait before it is not counted here, and these figures would understate it.
- The two clocks also end differently. A program case ends at authorization, which comes after the applicant records a covenant, so the applicant's own time is inside the count. A conditional use case ends at the Zoning Administrator's action, with any appeal and the clearing of conditions after it.
So the comparison is between two published timelines rather than one quantity measured twice, and the 3.2 times gap between the medians is the scale of the difference rather than a measurement of it.
Official sources for this section
What each route costs
Base application fees, before surcharges. The standard conditional use application for alcohol is $19,418 and the program's administrative clearance is $2,207, a difference of $17,211 and 8.8 times the fee.
Both moved on February 23, 2026, when Ordinance 188796 took effect, and they moved in opposite directions: the conditional use fee went +65% and the program's own fee went -12%.
These are the application lines rather than a total. The fact sheet's own package figure does not match the current base fees and may include surcharges or an earlier schedule, so this page prints the lines and leaves the addition to a reader with a real quote in front of them.
| Fee | Now | Before February 23, 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conditional Use Permit, alcohol and entertainment (Class 2) | $19,418 | $11,737 | +65% |
| Service of alcohol in a small restaurant, up to 50 seats | $10,468 | $8,697 | +20% |
| Restaurant Beverage Program administrative clearance | $2,207 | $2,512 | -12% |
| Conditional use monitoring | $1,986 | $2,010 | -1% |
| Restaurant Beverage Program monitoring | $1,324 | $2,010 | -34% |
| Inspection and field compliance, either route | $829 | $874 | -5% |
Official sources for this section
Why this is worth counting now
Executive Directive No. 24, signed on October 28, 2026, gives City Planning 30 days to report to the Mayor's office, which falls around November 27, 2026.
The directive's own words are that the report "The report should summarize lessons learned from the RBP and how similar approaches could potentially be applied to other types of alcohol-serving businesses."
The directive asks for lessons learned from the program and whether a similar route could work for businesses it does not cover. It does not ask for a count of how much the program has been used, and it does not say the report will be made public.
The fast route is not the only one the City and the County have opened lately. LA County began permitting home kitchens in November 2024, which is a restaurant in somebody's house rather than a storefront, and how to get a MEHKO permit is what that one takes.
Official sources for this section
What this data cannot tell you
Four things, and the first is the one a reader is most likely to assume the other way round.
- Use is not eligibility. A zero is a count of applications, not a statement about eligibility. Which parcels the program reaches is set by the City's own eligible-area map, which it publishes as an image rather than as data, so nothing on this page says where the program is or is not available.
- Applications turned away before a case number are invisible. City Planning's workflow says a planner checks eligibility and then generates a case number, so a restaurant told no at that step leaves no case page and is in none of these counts.
- "No decision shown" is not a refusal. The case page simply prints no action. 66 cases are in that state and most of them are recent filings.
- Withdrawn and denied applications are not fully visible. Only a case whose status now reads that way can be counted, and a public records request for the full disposition list has been prepared and not yet sent.
One oddity is left as published rather than corrected: one 2024 case number carries a filing date in 2023. It is the City's own record and this page does not edit it.
Where this count came from
City Planning publishes a bi-weekly Cases Filed report by Council District. Every one of them was read, and every case number carrying a Restaurant Beverage Program suffix was pulled: 450 distinct cases. Each case's own public page was then opened for its dates, its status, its address and the business name on it.
Each address was resolved against the City's own address index for a point on the map. Where the index returned more than one address of that number and street name, which happens because street names repeat across Los Angeles, the Council District decided which one: "510 W 7TH ST" is a real address in Downtown and another in San Pedro, and a first pass that read only the direction and the suffix put three cases in the wrong half of the city.
Every figure above is computed from the published file rather than typed, and the build refuses to run if its own count of any of them disagrees with the count made while reading the case pages. Every count in the two tables, every median and every percentile was reproduced that way.
- Statuses are the case pages' own words: authorized (346), no action shown (66), approved (31), administrative closure (2), pending (2), withdrawn (2), terminated (1).
- "Approved" on this page means the page reads either authorized or approved. Both appear and neither is explained on the page itself.
- The conditional use comparison is a random sample of 150 case numbers from the 320 in the same reports for 2023 to 2025. 132 pages returned data and 70 of those are restaurants, by the word appearing in the case description.
- 116 of the 132 sampled conditional use cases read "approved with conditions", which is a difference in kind rather than in speed: the standard route is decided by a Zoning Administrator and usually comes with conditions attached.
Official sources for this section
How we got these numbers
Source: the Department of City Planning's bi-weekly Cases Filed reports, and the public case page behind each case number in them. Read on November 5, 2026.
Scope: every case number carrying a Restaurant Beverage Program suffix, filed between June 2, 2022 and October 31, 2026. 450 cases.
Approved means the case page's ADM Action reads authorized or approved. Both words appear on these pages and neither is defined on them, so both are counted and the split is in the published file.
Days to a decision are calendar days from the Case Filed On date to the action date, both as printed. All 377 approved cases carry both. The Accepted For Review field reads N/A on every one of them, so it could not be used.
Addresses were resolved against the City of Los Angeles address index and joined to the Council District layer adopted in 2021 and to City Planning's Community Plan Areas layer. Where the index offered more than one point for a number and street name, the district decided; the neighborhood council printed on the case page agreed with it in every such case.
The conditional use figures are a sample, never a census: 150 case numbers drawn at random from the 320 Zoning Administrator alcohol cases in the same reports for 2023 to 2025, of which 132 pages returned data and 70 are restaurants.
Fees are base fees before surcharges, from Ordinance 188796 for the current schedule and the Director's memo of May 28, 2025 for the one it replaced.
Every aggregate on this page is computed from the published file by a build script, which stops if its own count disagrees with the count made while reading the case pages. The two counts are independent and agree on every row.
- Sources
- Department of City Planning, Restaurant Beverage Program The program page, its fact sheet and the citywide eligible-area map, which the City publishes as an image rather than as data.
- Department of City Planning, bi-weekly Cases Filed reports Every case number in this count came from these.
- Ordinance 188796, effective February 23, 2026 The current fee schedule, with the Director's memo of May 28, 2025 behind the prior column.
- Executive Directive No. 24, Office of the Mayor Signed October 28, 2026. Quoted rather than paraphrased on the page.
- City of Los Angeles address index and Council District boundaries Used to place each case address, and nothing else.
- Data through
- . City Planning posts a new Cases Filed report every two weeks. We plan to re-read them and re-cut this page quarterly, and the date above is when it was last done.
Download the data
Free to use, including commercially, with attribution to los-angeles.com. The underlying case records are the City of Los Angeles's; the compilation, the geocoding and the arithmetic are ours.
- Every Restaurant Beverage Program case, CSVAll 450 cases as read on November 5, 2026, one row each, with the point we placed the address at.Columns:
case_number, filed_on, status, decision_date, days_to_decision, council_district, community_plan_area, business_name, address, latitude, longitude
Cite this data
los-angeles.com analysis of City of Los Angeles Department of City Planning case records, read November 5, 2026.
Common questions
How many restaurants have used LA's Restaurant Beverage Program?
How much does the Restaurant Beverage Program cost compared with a conditional use permit?
How long does a Restaurant Beverage Program application take?
Which parts of Los Angeles use the program most?
Is the Restaurant Beverage Program being reviewed?
What has changed
- November 5, 2026 First published. 450 cases read, 377 approved, every address placed on the map.
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