Acre Pizza owner Steve DeCosse couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw the bright orange sign on Sebastopol’s main drag last month.

“There it was,” he said. “Little Caesars. How the hell did that happen?”

DeCosse isn’t the only Sebastopol business owner or resident asking how a chain business — defined by the city as a store or restaurant with 25 or more locations nationwide — ended up in downtown Sebastopol, where such retail outlets have been banned since 2018.

LIttle Caesars is the third-largest pizza chain in the world, with restaurants in every U.S. state and 27 countries and territories.

The Sebastopol store is co-owned by Modesto-based brothers Gurdip Singh and Harcanb Khehara, who also own Little Caesars shops in Rohnert Park, Windsor and Santa Rosa. Singh said they had hoped to

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