By Ayako Mie/BERKELEY

Growing up, Virada Chatikul was a shy girl. She was too embarrassed to speak in front of her classmates in school.  But that all changed one day when she was 15 and was attending the traditional dance performance at the Berkeley Thai Temple Sunday Food Offering.

“I really wanted to be part of a group that I could really identify with myself as a Thai American growing up in San Francisco,” said Chatikul, a second-generation Thai American. “I really cannot imagine what trajectory my life would have taken if I had not been part of this program.”

Sunday brunch at the Berkeley Thai Temple

But the program might be coming to an end. Even though the temple has been offering brunch for more than 15 years, they’ll have to stop unless the Berkeley Zoning Adjustment Board grants a new permit,   A meeting on the permit is scheduled for January.

 The problem emerged when the temple applied for a permit to expand its sanctuary in April. The city found that the Thai temple had been violating their original permit, obtained in 1992, which allowed the religious institution to hold food-offering services only three times a year.

The Sunday brunch, which started as a small social gathering for Thai Americans, has over the years expanded by word of mouth, sometimes attracting more than 600 people every week, including non-Thai American or Buddhists who love Thai food.

Berkeley Zoning Adjustment Board hearing on Sep. 26th ( courtesy of the Berkeley Thai Temple)

The temple immediately reapplied for a new permit to match the weekly food-offering tradition.  However, 19 neighbors charged the temple for illegally running a restaurant business. They claimed the Sunday brunch was creating noise, unpleasant smells and unwanted parking, and asked the city not to grant a new permit.

“The temple did not anticipate the future activity of growth,” said Debora Sheen, a staff attorney for the Asian Law Caucus, a civil rights organization which supports the Thai temple. “You do not really know that you are not in compliance because you had so much support from community.”

Center: Virada Chatikul

After holding three mediations with the neighbors, the temple made concessions — it secured parking spaces for the Sunday brunch-goers and organized a group to pick up trash, even trash not from the Sunday brunch.

“If the Sunday brunch closes down, virtually, the temple closes down,” said Christina Jirachachavalwong, a Thai temple volunteer, who has been a member of the temple for more than 10 years.

The Sunday Food Offering is a crucial part of merit making — the Thai Buddhist religious practice in which monks earn merit by providing religious guidance and food.

Seventy-five percent of the temple’s income comes from the brunch and finances cultural activities the temple offers, such as free language classes, Thai dance and music classes, maintenance of the facility, and sustaining the eight residing and visiting monks. Jirachachavalwong said the temple is already suffering financially — their monthly income went down by half since August, as a result of cutting the food-serving hours. They used to serve the food from 8:30am to 2:30pm. But in response to the neighbor’s request, they now serve from 10 am to 1 pm.

The Thai temple, which has been at the spot for 27 years,  has served as a second home for Thai Americans, and the service offered by the temple is essential for younger generations’ sense of identity.

“I used to hate coming here,” said Neon Kulavitaya, a senior student volunteer from Daly City, whose parents sent him to Sunday language class when he was little. “Now I feel the Temple makes me feel more unique about myself.”

Christina Jirachachavalwong and her daughter, Navi Emiliano

“I come here to pass it on to my daughter so that she knows who she is and can become tri-cultural,” said Jirachachavalwong, whose four-year old daughter is half Thai, half Mexican. “I think it is more important for her to realize who she is and know the language and tradition.”

However, some neighbors say that the city is being too lenient with the temple, and has turned a blind eye on the temple’s outright violation of the use permit.

“This is a restaurant. It is in the Zagat,” said John Taylor, referring to a local resturaunt guide. Taylor has been living right behind the temple for more than 20 years. He said that he enjoyed the Sunday brunch many times, and admitted that the temple has made improvements in cleaning up the streets. However, he advocated that the temple should find an alternative place for the brunch. “The temple should separate commercial and spiritual,” he said.

The majority of the neighbors are sympathetic to the temple. The temple has collected 2,200 petitions, of which 118 petitions come from neighbors who live within three blocks.

“The temple is a symbol of diversity in Berkeley,” said Helge Osterhold, a neighbor originally from Germany.

“Food is amazing, and people are genuinely sweet and nice,” said Jeff White, a neighbor who lives across the street. “I think it is horrible the city of Berkeley deny a permit based on the complaints of the few ignorant neighbors.”

The temple is getting ready for the city’s final decision in January. It will submit the noise inspection results, which found the noise level around the food serving area to be 66 decibels, which is within federal standards for residential areas.

However, Chatikul is uneasy about the future of her beloved second home. “I do not even know what to say, if it were to disappear. I think it would be a huge loss,” she said. “ Speaking out for the temple is my way of merit making to give back to the temple for what I got from them.”

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