Hollywood-Gower Neighborhood Association 

Neighborhood Meeting Report 

June 25, 2003 

Neighborhood Watch: Don Colliver explained how he was putting together a neighborhood watch for Carlton and Gordon. He is working with the police and will schedule a meeting soon. He says that the community police department is assisting with the creation of a bilingual flyer and has young people that will distribute them. 

L.A. Youth Network: Fernando Ramirez & Martha Gonzalez from L.A. Youth Network gave a presentation on what services they offer to the homeless. 

L.A. Youth Network serves kids from 12 – 17 years old. They give them shelter, food, clothing, showers and crisis intervention. They drive around in vans to various areas with food, clothing, hydrogen/bleach kids for IV users and transport homeless kids to the shelter. Most chronic runaways have issues with the system and with adults. Some have been abused. They are at full capacity right now.  

Neighbors expressed issues with the impact that homeless have in the neighborhood. Mike asked about the mural on the wall. Martha and Fernando doubt that there will be any changes made on that but will forward our comments to management. Discussion about trash clean up lead to the possibility that one of the L.A. Youth Network staff could bring one of the kids to Mike Grier’s street and maybe the three can do some cleaning up of his street or any of the other blocks that need it. Mike is willing to work with them. By engaging in this kind of activity, perhaps trust can be built between the kids and the neighbors. Maybe the kids will find themselves not wanting to litter. Maybe they will lose some of their distrust of adults. Fernando & Martha expressed their willingness to work things out and asked that we call them if there is a problem with their kids: 323-957-7364. 

Homeless/vagrant problems: Jessica is the manager of 1762 Tamarind.  She mentioned the problems that homeless are giving her. Recently she intervened as a homeless man encouraged his pit bull to attack a young person. She ended up having her car dented and damaged as retribution but ultimately the guy was arrested. She talked about the trash and graffiti on her street and the lack of light at the end of the cul-de-sac. Also there’s graffiti on the Cal Trans wall.  

Q-Topia: Jordan explained his commitment to the neighborhood and to working out any problems that people have as a result of his establishment. He told us of the efforts he has made to mitigate noise and other issues. He told of how he does hourly surveys of the perimeter of his operation during the Friday and Saturday events. He has a clean up crew that goes through the neighborhood afterwards and security runs.  He talked about the petition that Denise and Ruth are circulating and said he welcomes open discussion as well as any inspectors that would like to come by. He feels he is under attack. He said that he might have to respond to some of the more negative exhibitions through litigation.  

Spirited debate ensued when Ruth and Denise took issue with details of Q-Topia’s conditional use permit. Fran expressed her desire to continue the focus that the neighbors have adopted of defining the source of neighborhood problems as coming from the high concentration of social services and the criminal homeless that wander our streets. She noticed that until this meeting, no one from Tamarind has attended or complained about Q-Topia. She said that when they do that, we could alter our focus from the drug dealers, prostitutes and criminal homeless and focus on Q-Topia instead. 

Ultimately the majority of the group was supportive of working with Jordan and supporting his right to do business and continue to serve the neighborhood.  

Jordan and Jessica made an agreement that she would contact him if there were any problems on her block from his patrons. He also agreed to extend his clean up policy to include Tamarind. They agreed to survey the situation together after the meeting. 

Strip Mall: The strip mall on northeast corner of Hollywood and Gower was discussed. Questions arise as to why the property owners don’t organize to fight the loitering and panhandling. The security is not acting responsibly and quits at 4PM. Jordan will check out who pays the Security. The people who hire the security are not getting their money’s worth. The businesses may be suffering already since some say they don’t go there any longer. 

Missy mentioned that the businesses that serve alcohol have conditional use permits. There is usually an aspect of security mentioned as a condition of the permit to serve alcohol. She will try to do a search online to see if there is access to those CUPs online.  

Meeting was adjourned 

Next meeting will be on Wednesday, July 30, 2003 at 7PM. Eric Garcetti has agreed to attend. Permit parking will also be discussed.