Bob Cuddy: In Downtown Brew, we see a model business

Up in Paso Robles, we have yet another example of the plague of small communities: class struggle.

In this case, the proletariat are the regular folks who want to unwind at the local bar-restaurant Friday and Saturday night. They are facing off against the horsey set.

I say the horsey set because the folks complaining about the noise those fun-loving folks make are registered at the Hotel Cheval.

Cheval is French for horse. And, indeed, the establishment’s Web site is chockablock with photos of rooms large enough to hold a barn and six stallions.

A horse and carriage with a livery-clad driver (he looks suspiciously like old family retainer Anthony Hopkins) pose sedately. The bar, where patrons quaff high-end local wine while lolling on teak patio furniture, is called the Pony Club.

The hotel promises an “intimate” setting, “personalized service” and “refined accommodations.”

“Cheval is a horse of a color not previously seen in these parts,” it boasts.

The proprietors list the hotel’s only downside as the heavy competition in getting reservations.

As it turns out, there is another downside: the Downtown Brew, across the street and up a block. The brew is also a place to relax but not in the high-ceilinged splendor the tourist hotel offers.

It’s just a place to get a drink, spend good time with friends and listen to music.

Uh, about that listening to music part: the Downtown Brew has an upstairs balcony. It’s open to the Central Coast air, and the music wafts — some might use a stronger verb like “blasts” — to the Hotel Cheval, distressing folks who have paid hundreds of dollars to pretend they’re visiting 17th-century France.

A Downtown Brew patron I chatted with Thursday dismissed the complaints: “Some people will complain if you don’t hang them with a fresh rope.”

Nevertheless, the hotel’s owners griped to the local Council of Elders, known more drably in Paso Robles as the Planning Commission. The commission is supposed to mediate dust-ups like this.

Commissioners pored over the fine print in the Downtown Brew’s permit and chastised its owners for a lack of gentility; not playing by the city’s rules.

No more debauchery for you, commissioners said. Music and dancing are hereby banished, until the brew closes doors and windows when music plays and makes other noise-containing changes.

At first, the brew’s owners took umbrage. “We feel like we’re being singled out by Hotel Cheval. We don’t feel like they want us there,” said Darren Smith of Compass Health, which owns Downtown Brew.

But Smith and his partner agreed to do whatever they must to co-exist.

Well done, Downtown Brew! You have shown a reasonableness that should stand as an example to the businesses that are going to be hauled before the Elders in months and years to come.

Count on it; this won’t be the last time a moneymaker will complain about existing establishments that pinch the pipeline of wine tourist dollars.

It’s the nature of the beast in a changing community.