A newly shaven Peter Zarcone in April 2015 just as his joint vendetta with the BIDs against nightclubs in Hollywood took off.Recall that in April 2015 the two HPOA BIDs, the LAPD, and the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce revealed an ongoing conspiracy to shut down minority-serving entertainment venues in Hollywood. Their favored technique for doing this is hyperenforcement of Conditional Use Permits (CUPs). These documents contain numerous restrictions on the operations of bars, restaurants, and so on. Violating these conditions while operating is actually a crime, and owners and employees of venues can be arrested for doing so. This actually happens, e.g. in the shameful case of the Rusty Mullet. Keep that in mind. The LAPD can physically arrest restaurant employees for violations of the CUP. It can also shut the venue down immediately if the CUP is being violated.
Now, in November 2015, eight months after the BID and Zarcone began targeting nightclubs and bars that they didn’t like,1 the Hollywood Property Owners Alliance sponsored a music festival centered around Cahuenga Boulevard between Hollywood and Selma, notably the most caucasian micro-neighborhood in Hollywood-nightlife-land. Thus, on September 9, 2015, Kerry Morrison wrote to LAPD and CD13:
This festival is intended to present a neighborhood “night-life” experience in Hollywood. We are trying to change the image of Hollywood by celebrating the authentic music and artistic options that are here. As such, the BID is “curating” over four days/nights dozens of different musical experiences, acts, pop-up art shows, comedy, etc — and inviting the public in to experience Hollywood as a walkable neighborhood. … The activity is largely going to be centered around Selma and Cahuenga — very little will happen on Hollywood Blvd.
Marqueece Harris-Dawson is an American hero.Yesterday the Planning and Land Use Management Committee heard the Cosmo Club’s appeal of the Zoning Administrator’s revocation of their conditional use permit. See the whole thing here, with a very short second part here. Also, the Council file is here. This is the second in the ongoing series of Hollywood clubs that cater to minorities being targeted for elimination by Kerry Morrison, the Hollywood Property Owners Alliance, the LAPD, and CD13 rep Mitch O’Farrell. The racist nature of this anti-nightclub campaign is revealing itself to the public, as dirty secrets will do, so this hearing drew some protesters who stated clearly, articulately, just exactly what is going on in Hollywood. Also, although L.A. Times reporting on this issue to date has been sporadic and radically incomplete, I spotted the incomparable Emily Alpert-Reyes exchanging contact information with Cosmo Club attorney Mike Ayaz after the hearing, so maybe something interesting is forthcoming.
There are links to a number of highlights at the end of this post, but the hearing was particularly rich, and I’m going to have to cover it in increments, starting at the end. If you’re not familiar with the situation, you can read up about it here and also here.2 But here is the short version of how we got to this point: Kerry Morrison, her BIDs, and Peter Zarcone decided to destroy a bunch of nightclubs in Hollywood. Mitch O’Farrell told City Planning to get on it. They did, and the City Council will vote in favor of Mitch no matter how bogus the evidence is because they also want to exercise unilateral control over every aspect of everything in their districts, which they can only do with the connivance of their colleagues. Marqueece Harris-Dawson didn’t play along at yesterday’s hearing, which, although he was merely doing his job as a Councilmember, is very brave, since if he does it too often the zillionaire elite will certainly take away his seat in 2019.
CD13 Hollywood Field Deputy Dan Halden at the August 2015 HPOA All Property Owners Meeting.(Hitherto we have sought to understand O’Farrell’s anti-nightclub campaign; the point, however, is to change it)
The other day we wrote about the Rusty Mullet conditional use permit revocation hearing, but didn’t get around to covering CD13 Hollywood Field Deputy Dan Halden’s testimony, which you can listen to here, and as always there’s a transcript after the break, and we’ll just take it line by line, also as always.
My name is Daniel Halden. H-A-L-D-E-N. Good afternoon, I guess. I was going to say good morning, but good afternoon. I serve Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell of the Thirteenth District. I’m his Hollywood Field Deputy, which is a position I’ve had since May 2014.
It is editorial policy here at MK.org to showcase anything true that our guests say. Unfortunately all too often that’s no more than their name, rank, and serial number.
It’s the top priority of the Councilman [unintelligible] to ensure public safety and a high quality of life, whether it’s in Hollywood or anywhere in the Thirteenth District.
This photograph shows that Officer Benjamin Thompson (#39467) of the Hollywood Vice Squad is a mewling, puking liar. Read on for details!A couple weeks ago we wrote about a Zoning Administrator hearing being held for the purpose of revoking the Rusty Mullet’s conditional use permit. Well, the hearing was held on July 28, 2016. As far as we know a determination has not yet been made, but we recently obtained more than five hours of audio from the hearing. You can listen to part I and also part II here. It’s not easy to get through the whole damned thing, which is why you’re lucky to have us! We’ve listened to the whole thing and made clips of some interesting bits. Note that as long as we were haunting City Hall to get this material we also obtained audio from the CUP revocation hearings for the Cosmo Nightclub and the Cashmere, and you can find both of those on this Archive.org page.
Now, long-time readers of this blog will recall that in March 2015 we broke the story that Fabio Conti, Carol Massie, Kerry Morrison, Marty Shelton, and pretty much everyone on the Board of Directors of the Sunset & Vine BID except for Chase Gordon are a bunch of racists who want to shut down every bar on Hollywood Boulevard because they don’t like the skin color of the patrons. So imagine our pleasure at learning that Mike Ayaz, the Rusty Mullet’s lawyer, actually showed our video at the hearing! This was part of the evidence for his position, with which we concur, that the restaurant appears on a hit list of bars being targeted for racist reasons by the BID, the LAPD, and the City Government. You can hear the whole clip here, where he refers to Fabio’s speech as “disturbing video which I would like to play of a quasi-governmental agency that basically…I think I’ll let the video speak for itself.” And speak for itself it does: Fabio Conti, Kerry Morrison, and Carol Massie at a March 2016 meeting of the quasi-governmental agency responsible for the clandestine hit list targeting the Rusty Mullet.
Be sure to catch the audience reaction at the end. It doesn’t make anyone sane happy to hear Fabio Conti channeling Marty Shelton claiming that “the Lindsey Lohans of the world are not hanging out at the Rusty Mullet” with the regulars, who are “decidedly minority, brown and black, and my guess, from a lower economic strata.” These dimwits on the BID are clearly going to regret the day they neglected to listen to their one and only sane Board Member, Chase Gordon, who responded to this bullshit in March 2015 by saying that he didn’t “think that we should be, especially public-facing, going out with the distinction of ‘we don’t want lower economic statuses coming and visiting Hollywood.” Anyway, who can say what will happen, but we here at MK.org are inordinately proud on this beautiful Sunday morning that the citizen journalism of our intrepid correspondent is paying off in this big way. This story is a sleeper, but when it finally makes the papers, it’s going to be huge.
If only we didn’t have to follow the LAW we would have solved this whole homelessness crisis long ago.Watch and listen here as Kerry Morrison quotes Sheila Kuehl blaming the L.A. County Supervisors’ utter failure to solve our homelessness problem on the fact that the Brown Act requires them to hold open meetings and conduct their deliberations in public (full transcript after the break as always). The message essentially is that the Supervisors can’t get anything done if they have to do it when people are watching. This kind of attitude is, of course, the reason we have to have a Brown Act in the first place. Kerry Morrison’s statements are hearsay, and it’s just as likely that Kerry Morrison, in the throes of her fever dreams of a Hollywood Reich, delusionally attributed this sentiment to Kuehl. We’ll never know at this point.
Readers of this blog are probably pretty familiar with the Brown Act’s requirements. They essentially say that the Supervisors can’t discuss legislative action in secret. They have to do it in public meetings.3 The law doesn’t restrict the kinds of things they can talk about, it doesn’t restrict the kinds of deals they can make with one another or with third parties. It only requires them to conduct their deliberations and decision-making in public.
So Kerry Morrison’s version of Sheila Kuehl’s position is disconcerting. She claims that Kuehl claims that the Brown Act prevents the Supervisors from eliminating homelessness because “…they can’t converse with each other. You can’t horse-trade votes. … You know, so you can’t collaborate, you know, can we all agree on what we’re all gonna…you have to do it all in open session, and it’s very cumbersome…” The idea seems to be that the supervisors can’t have an honest discussion in public, so they can’t have any discussion at all.
Lee Baca, Paul Tanaka, and this freaking genius…nothing but the best and the brightest for the LA County Sheriff…Our correspondent hasn’t been to the Joint Security Committee of the HPOA and the CHC in a long time, but we do miss his reports; that’s where the real crazy happens. You can watch last Thursday’s meeting in its entirety and we’ll be presenting a few different selections from it over the next few days. Tonight’s little jewel has to do with the unknown LA County Sheriff’s Deputy whose picture is presently gracing your screen somewhere near this sentence. No one could understand his name when he announced it during the introductions, which is unfortunate because blasting the personal identity of ham-fisted babbling Sarah-Palin-wannabe cheese eaters like this genius all over the internet in close Google-cinity of their carefully transcribed moronic pronouncements is kind of this blog’s whole raison d’être and stuff. But ’twas not to be.
The Rusty Mullet at Hollywood and Las Palmas. Fabio Conti hates it. Carol Massie hates it. Marty Shelton hates it. Peter Zarcone hates it. The LAPD accused it of murder. Tomorrow the City is holding a hearing on whether to shut it down.Listen, this isn’t a joke. First get a copy of the hearing notice in the matter of the Rusty Mullet, being held at the Zoning Commission tomorrow morning. Then read the LAPD summary:
Los Angeles Police Department arrest report and crime analysis documentation of: multiple violations of Conditional Use Permit conditions including, failure to have an operable electronic age verification device, failure to implement a Designated Driver Program, failure to post mandated hours of operation, excess number of seats, allowance of amplified music to extend beyond the premises, allowance of live amplified music, allowance of dancing, allowance of loitering, and allowance of patrons to queue in line outside the premises; as well as, murder, rapes, aggravated assaults, assault with a deadly weapon, batteries, physical altercations, kidnapping, possession of a weapon, narcotic drug violations, grand theft auto, robberies, burglary, thefts, service of an obviously intoxicated person, failure of security guard to possess valid security guard license, public drunkenness, disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace, vandalism, and violation of State of California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control required operating conditions.
Tile artwork by Gilbert Luján in the Hollywood/Vine Metro station. According to Kerry Morrison and the HPOA this kind of art is not acceptable in Hollywood.The HPOA is famous for hating on dark-skinned nightclub patrons in Hollywood so it probably shouldn’t be a surprise that they4 also hate on graffiti-inspired artwork, which is strongly associated with Latino/Angeleno culture. But it’s a surprise anyway. The depth of the crazy always is. The fact that the HPOA supports graffiti art when it’s produced by white Europeans makes the whole thing even more shameful.
Here’s the story. Yesterday, the HPOA announced a competition to select artwork for ten utility boxes on Hollywood Boulevard.5 The first two requirements for submissions are:
The theme of each project must include “Hollywood”. Be inspired by the city, its history and future!
NO6 Cartoon Images or Graffiti work of any kind will be considered.
Do you see the contradiction here? The history of “Hollywood”7 and even more so the future of Hollywood includes cartoon images and graffiti work, both of which styles are inextricably associated with Latino culture in Los Angeles, including, to the evident dismay of the HPOA, Hollywood itself. And even bracketing this uncaring aggressive ignorance about the local culture, we have to wonder who says something like that out loud? Hate graffiti art if you will, or any kind of art, but if you’re announcing a public contest to choose art for public display to be paid for with public money, have the self-awareness to understand that by announcing out loud that you won’t consider a style of art that’s so strongly associated with Latinos you’re making yourself look like a ignorant racist yahoo. Just a fact. You don’t have to believe us, ask your PR firm.8Tile artwork by Gilbert Luján in the Hollywood/Vine Metro station. According to Kerry Morrison and the HPOA this kind of art is not acceptable in Hollywood.
Just for instance, consider the world-famous Hollywood/Vine Red Line station. Metro commissioned artwork from world-famous Los Angeles artist Gilbert Luján to decorate the station. According to Metro:
Artist and architect worked together to evoke the history, glamour and excitement of the Hollywood film industry’s yesteryears and its great movie palaces.
If you have a problem, like being possessed of an evil spirit, this guy will pray for you. Now you have two problems.After tonight’s Sunset Vine BID Board Meeting Steve Seyler, Joe Salazar, and the angry guy pictured in this video, who is obviously a close personal friend if not a relative of Seyler’s, blocked the front door of HPOA headquarters so that our correspondent would have had to walk through them to leave. It wasn’t completely obvious that they were waiting there to hassle him, but pacifism über alles is everyone’s motto around here, so he asked Devin Strecker if he could go out the back door and the ever-courtly Strecker walked back there with him and let him out.
Kerry Morrison with her detective hat on.There is all kinds of interesting stuff in the BID Patrol daily log files, and some of it is too weird to even describe. This little story is from April 24, 2015, written by BID Patrol officers Mike Coogle and his frequent partner Mike Ayala:
OUTREACH- 1500 BLOCK OF GORDON AVENUE- E/ SIDE OF STREET
YESTERDAY WE RECEIVED A CALL FROM KERRY’S OFFICE REGARDING A VEHICLE SHE OBSERVED. THE VEHICLE, A GREY BUICK LIC#XXXXXXX, WAS UNOCCUPIED BUT CONTAINED A CHILD SEAT, FORMULA AND OTHER ITEMS POSSIBLY INDICATING THE OWNER OF THE VEHICLE IS HOMELESS WITH A CHILD. YESTERDAY WE LEFT A PATH CARD AND FLIER WITH LOCAL, FAMILY FRIENDLY HOMELESS SERVICES ON THE WINDSHIELD. THIS MORNING, THE CARD AND PAPER WERE GONE. THE VEHICLE WAS UNOCCUPIED AND SOME ITEMS APPEARED TO BE IN DIFFERENT SPOTS.
