Factory, Superstars
By Ron Garmon
Knit Snit: Back in mid-decade or thereabouts, I wrote that the Knitting Factory was the one thing standing between the Galaxy Theater complex on Hollywood Blvd. and an entry in deadmalls.com. The 18th Street Crips sold heroin from street corners and the boulevard was blocked with jackrollers of every description. Fade in a few years later and galloping gentrification has rid the place of the showier variety of scum, the former entertainment complex is now all retail outlets, and the city apparently wants the Knitting Factory out.
Morgan Margolis, the Knit’s VP of National Operations, is more than a little annoyed at this – “After eight years at a space that was in this crime-ridden Hollywood corridor when we got here, the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety (LADBS) contends this club is a nuisance and doesn’t comply under their ‘upscale restaurant’ guidelines,” the VP asserts. “It just so happens we are compliant under our conditional use permit, but there’s a lot of issues going on here. I asked for a clarification of these issues and instead they jumped me right to a public hearing. We also asked for it to be vacated for another date, because it just so happens our first and second lawyer will be outta town. They denied, so I’ve hadda go to my third lawyer and go over this whole thing again.”
I groan sympathies and Margolis takes a breath to continue, reciting a long, indignant account of official arrogance, pushiness, and Pecksniffery that all adds up to an old-fashioned roust. Among the less-credible charges is throwing erotic-themed events: “We had a grand total of three adult entertainment parties in eight years and now there’s a problem?” he asks incredulously. “You might as well shut down Hollywood, since it was built on sex! So, yeah, they tried to force an injunction and shut us down. This event was Adult Media Play’s premiere of their Not Just the Bradys triple-XXX movie. They even agreed not to show any of the film! So we even had to get that signed-off on. Then the LADBS came down and saw some girls flashing and they got photos that make it look like we’re an erotica venue. It was a 21-over event and over six months ago anyway, and they’re still going off on it. So three shows don’t make us the Smut Factory. I don’t see them taking photos of the kids who come here to play night after night, which is what really goes on here.”
The problems range from quibbles over cutlery and menu prices to more substantive police overreaction. “They shut down an Adicts show last year by not allowing any more than 250 people inside and I gotta 800-cap room,” Margolis reveals, “200 were inside and 150 outside and the cops showed up in riot gear, dispersed the crowd, and shut down the venue. They caused the problem and I hadda refund the audience, refund the Adicts and there were a lotta pissed-off kids on the plaza who didn’t have anything else to do. Every time there’s a fight in the plaza, they blame the Knit.”As might be expected, the Knit’s compromises only whetted appetites for more concessions. “We’ve closed our box office during the day because there were complaints about the kind of people who bought tickets,” says Margolis. “I don’t care if a kid has a mohawk or a bone in his nose, he should be treated with respect and the same as anybody else. I’ve had the same staff and even some of the bartenders for eight years. We’re in this for the art. What people don’t realize is this venue tends to lose money, but this is where upcoming bands break. What could they want to put here, another shoe store? We don’t even have street signage or even a marquee. We were under construction for three and a half years and that hurt our business. We helped clean up this corner of Hollywood and Sycamore and made it attractive for them. We went from open seven days a week to three or four days a week. They’ve made it very difficult to do business.”
The venue’s troubles come to a head on Thursday, July 17, when the LADBS holds a public hearing on the matter at City Hall on 200 N. Spring St. in Room 1020 at 10 a.m. I’ll be there, and I urge every fan of live music to show up and let the city know they favor rock ’n’ roll on Hollywood Boulevard. The LADBS was unavailable for comment at press time.
Plump Times: The clowns have been coming down hard of late on various branch offices of Clubland. Hassles with officialdom at aboveground venues like the Knit trace a nasty parallel with recent woes visited upon the underground party set. Three downtown art parties were cut short by visits from JQ Law in recent weeks, so Plump! was no doubt well advised to decamp from its old digs in Filipinotown. This monthly all-night party now lifts off every second Friday at White Moon Dreams at 55 Waverly Pl. in a nocturnally underpopulated section of Pasadena. The crowd is half-Burners and about 50 percent random sexy people who wander in to dance all night. From 9 to 10 p.m. is an art show followed by electro and house DJs until 5 a.m. I’ll be there, supporting my local debauch.
Published: 07/09/2008
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