GARDEN GROVE : Church Officials Ask City Help in Dispute

Officials of a Lutheran church this week asked the City Council to resolve a dispute involving a nearby Buddhist temple. The officials complained of noise and parking problems generated by the temple’s large gatherings.

Members of Our Redeemer Lutheran Church complained that Buddhist worshipers swamp their parking lots on special occasions, displacing Lutheran churchgoers, and asked the City Council to halt the use of firecrackers that are set off on special occasions at the temple at 12292 Magnolia St., across the street from the church.

Tuesday’s meeting marked the second time in three months that a Garden Grove Buddhist temple has been the center of complaints about noise and parking. In December, a Superior Court judge settled a similar dispute between the city and Temple Lien Hoa on Bixby Avenue, which the city said did not have a permit to operate as a church.

Similarly, City Manager George Tindall said that worshipers have met illegally in the unfinished, two-story, pagoda-styled Buddhist temple on Magnolia and that officials have ordered them to cease operations. However, temple members have been allowed to worship in a smaller, remodeled residence next to the temple.

Tindall said that while he can go to court if necessary to enforce parking codes around the temple if complaints continue, he is powerless to crack down on firecrackers, as some council members had urged, because they are legal when used in religious ceremonies.

The Rev. Thich Phap-Chau, leader of the Buddhist congregation, said temple crowds usually number about 100 but acknowledged that thousands visit on the Tet holiday, during commemorations celebrating Buddha’s birthday, and on Mothers and Fathers Day.

Phap-Chau said he has posted signs in Vietnamese and English on temple grounds warning his congregation not to park in the Lutheran lot or to set off firecrackers but that some church members have not heeded the signs.

Phil Lochhaas, a spokesman for Our Redeemer Church Council, said Lutheran officials invited Buddhists to use the Lutheran lot temporarily in May, 1990, when construction of the temple began.

“We thought it was the neighborly thing to do. We had assumed it would be finished in nine months to a year.”

But after construction work on the temple lagged, the Lutherans withdrew their permission and asked temple officials to help members of the congregation find other places to park, he said.