Malfunction at the Junction?

Tensions surrounding the 28th annual Sunset Junction Festival in Silver Lake have escalated dramatically this week, with area businesses referring to themselves as “angry villagers” and the Junction’s organizer, Michael McKinley, saying that the business owners  “all want to make bank” and that they’re cranky because they never got “strawberry ice cream as kids.”

Less than 24 hours before the start of the festival, which is expected to draw as many as 50,000 people, the dozens of businesses lining Sunset Boulevard between Edgecliffe Drive and Sanborn Avenue are still unsure who will be within the official boundaries of the festival, which is organized each year by the non-profit Sunset Junction Neighborhood Alliance with headquarters at Tsunami coffee shop.

Those boundaries determine the flow of foot traffic to area businesses, as well as which employees and residents need to pay entry fees.

Until last year, the official entry gate on the east end of Sunset Boulevard was at Edgecliffe. In 2007 the gate was moved to Sanborn, relegating the three-block swath of businesses making up what many people consider the heart of Silver Lake to the status of a vendor parking lot. Business owners who say they lost money and were disappointed to be excluded from the event have spent the past year lobbying both city council member Eric Garcetti’s office and the S.J.N.A. to ensure that the same thing doesn’t happen again this year.

Despite a motion passed on Aug. 15 by the city council and Garcetti’s office mandating that no gate be erected between official entrance gates at Edgecliffe and Fountain, business owners claim that the S.J.N.A is angling to erect a free gate at Edgecliffe and a pay gate at Sanborn, effectively creating a “dead zone” out of the business corridor in question.

Mitch O’Farrell, district director of constituent services for Garcetti, says he received verbal agreement Thursday from the S.J.N.A. that they won’t put up a gate at Sanborn, but he has still asked area business owners to meet him Saturday on the corner of Sunset and Sanborn at 8 a.m.

“We can’t legislate good behavior. I’ll be there early Saturday morning; I don’t want to take any chances,” said O’Farrell, half-jokingly adding, “If I have to bring tools to take down any barriers, I’ll do that.”

Sarah Dale, the owner of Pull My Daisy boutique, who has been working for more than a year to bring the boundaries of the Junction back to their original positions, says she’s upset that it has come to this at the 11th hour. “I have to haul myself out of bed at 7 a.m. and chain myself to the gate to say, ‘You’re not allowed to do this,’ ” Dale says.

Dale and others, including Joe Keeper of Bar Keeper, Ron Martinez of Good Microbrew & Grill, Neal Guthrie of Gilly’s Flowers and Ty McNulty of Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea, say they are baffled as to why McKinley seems intent on excluding them from the fair. But all agree that there appears to be something personal about it.

“He changed the footprint out of spite,” Dale said.

“He’s a bully,” Martinez said, adding that competition from his restaurant and its relatively cheap handcrafted beers was causing corporate beer vendors in the fair to complain.

“On two different occasions I’ve had [people from the S.J.N.A] confront me in my store,” Guthrie said. On Thursday, he said that someone working for the S.J.N.A. came in and accused him of not donating anything to the community. “They gave me three wristbands but said that I didn’t need them because the event is not going to be here,” Guthrie said. “It’s going to be at Sanborn.”

When McNulty went to pick up wristbands for his employees on Thursday (the festival costs $20 this year), he says, the S.J.N.A. wouldn’t give him any and he was told there would be a gate at Sanborn.

“I was told that I didn’t need to be involved in it anyway because I’ve only been here for a year and they didn’t owe us anything,” Guthrie says.

McNulty says later that day members of the S.J.N.A. came to Intelligentsia and gave his assistant manager five wristbands. When the manager pointed out that the café has 30 employees, McNulty says, the S.J.N.A. representatives said, “The rest can pay,” and left. “So maybe the pay gate will be at Edgecliffe,” McNulty mused, “snce my employees will have to pay to get to work.”

McKinley, who helped found the Junction and whose non-profit S.J.N.A. works with disadvantaged neighborhood youth and maintains neighborhood murals, says he decided to change the boundaries of the festival because “there were code violations and security issues and the residents didn’t want to pay to walk across the street to the businesses.”

Good’s Martinez says that the code violation McKinley is referring to occurred four years ago when someone left his property with a beer. “He keeps using that but we’ve solved that problem, we’re vigilant now, we’ve hired security.”

McKinley also says that he offered the area businesses an olive branch recently that they and Garcetti’s office flatly rejected.

He says he was going to use the blocks in question for “a bike valet park, a skateboarding ramp, a dance floor, stilt walkers, mimes, roller skaters and palm readers, but the council office said no.”

“That was a very interesting notion he had,” said O’Farrell. “That came about in early August after all of these months of negotiation and us telling him that these businesses had to be actively included. When he presented it, it was not a popular idea at all.”

“He wanted to park the bikes in front of my restaurant,” said Martinez. “Is this man crazy?”

“We’re just asking to be a part of our community,” said Dale.

McKinley, whose S.J.N.A. website has the tag line “To live in harmony with our neighbors,” says that his neighbors are “on a power trip. They’re pushing us to the wall, making us do things we’ve never had to do. It’s really disgusting.”

Although businesses between Edgecliffe and Sanborn have reported that as late as today they are being told by the S.J.N.A. that they are not within the boundaries of the fair, McKinley told The Times that he plans to comply with the motion passed by the city council and not erect a gate at Sanborn.

That doesn’t mean that there will be any booths or activities along that stretch of road.

“I feel naïve and duped,” said Dale. “Here we are just before the festival and I can’t get a straight answer about what’s happening in front our store.”

“I think they’re setting up the first stage at Santa Monica and Sunset so it’s possible that there won’t be anything to do until then,” says O’Farrell. “It’s unfortunate that it’s come to this. We’re very disappointed.”

-- Jessica Gelt

Photo of Sunset Junction 2003 by Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[George]

I wondered why last year was so small and crowded. I had friends ask if i was going this year, and I said no way because last year was so bad and crowded, too crowded. Its a shame, I remember the many years when this was one of the best things in LA. I guess nothing good lasts forever. I'd rather go to sunset junction on any other weekend and enjoy the shops and restuarants so much more. I guess I'll be there next weekend instead.

[Peterpatnter]

"Silver Lake" is along Silver Lake Boulevard -- which is 0.6 mile east of Edgecliffe, and another quarter-mile from Sanborn. How does this yokel McKinley get away with calling that stretch part of Silver Lake? Outrageous.

[Marloe]

Maybe the community as a whole will finally see what a bully Michael McKinley is now. His fake charity has been harming the people it is supposed to serve and filling his pockets for decades now, as he refuses to open his books, shakes down community members for involuntary "donations" and turns Sunset Junction into his personal fiefdom once a year. Feh!

[Mufon]

This is a "controversy" roiling the Sunset Junction? It seems like extensive over-coverage of a business dispute involving a few parties, which is entirely resolvable. The important thing is the attendees have fun, which I hope they do. Enjoy the festival, folks!

[Tom]

As a longtime resident, I remember a much better day when this fair was open and free to everyone. Now the fences, the gates, the corporate "sponsorship", and not least of course the $20 gate fee (!!!) really disgust me. This is no street fair at all, and it stands in stark contrast to the spirit and rhythm of our community that holds diversity and inclusion in highest esteem. My advice? If you want to experience Silverlake as its best, this is the one weekend per year that you DON'T want to be here. I FOR ONE HOPE THIS IS THE LAST YEAR THAT THIS CORPORATE SELLOUT TRAVESTY OF A STREET FAIR IS ALLOWED TO CONTINUE!!!

[Jim]

I went yesterday and it was weird. We didn't even know there was that long strip of shops and vendors going down Santa Monica until the very end of the night, and the huge "dead zone" (where most consider to be the HEART of Silver Lake) was just empty and confusing. I think this was my last Sunset Junction. As Gnarls Barkley put it: "Everything that's alive ultimately dies." Regardless of the contentious backstory, it's a shame.

[Neighbor]

The post by TOM sais it perfectly well -this is it!
Don't go there - visit Silver Lake outside Sunset Junction Disfunction!

[Neighbor]

The post by Tom says it all - Visit Silver Lake Junction outside the "Junction-Disfunction Fest"

[Kathleen K.]

$20 a ticket? Who is making bank? As a long-time Angelino, who is not a business owner, I have to say that Silverlake and Echo Park have come to me to represent our city's highest reach in in mutual understanding and support for a very diverse community. I believe our community enjoys the expession influenced by individual heritages in combination with freedom of coexisting artistic influences. You see it everywhere here...art, food, music, people. Just come day or night and you will find out....oh without an entrance fee...... We cannot allow this recent Sunset Junction debacle to define our community nor to demean it. Come on Angelinos! Yeah all of ya.
We live in a world bigger than our community interest of course, avarice tries, entitlement tries, and God help our dear Elliott, as the wall of Sound Solutions is sure to shake tonight, "Stupidity Tries'. Let's not let it. KK

[dorit]

As a long time resident of Sunset Junction, I too have had issues with the fair- the mandatory fees, the city waving the fees for closing the street, the gates that block off the residents, the “beer garden” mood.
Speaking only as a resident and mom, I must say I prefer the new foot print of the fair and I would have LOVED the family friendly street carnival that was planned for the stretch between Sandborn and Edgecliffe. How about including that next year?

[Erik]

I grew up in "East Hollywood" (where Sunset Junction is located) before the neighborhood became the trendy Silverlake for whatever reason. I used to go to the "Junction" every year since I was at King Junior High in 1991 and it made me proud to have a street festival that our neighborhood can call our own. The festival was a marker for my friends that school was about to start soon and we should celebrate one weekend before it starts. I remember the stretch of the street fair clearly, from McDees on Fountain to Saint Francis School, where all walks of life in our neighborhood can walk around and enjoy one sunny weekend. Now the people from the neighborhood are obligate to pay $20 for something that we've been going to for free/donation for the past 28 years? No thanks.

I'm sorry to say but II bet most of the attendees this year aren't even from the neighborhoood, I see them getting suckered for the $20 entrance fee.

Before I end my rant, I would like to thank Michael McKinley for exploiting our neighborhood for your own organization's benefit. You probably help a lot of people but you ain't helping the neighborhood where you get most of your funding from. Do us a favor and just go away.

[Ron]

I took a friend, who is new to LA, to Sunset Junction so she could experience a true Los Angeles event. How dissappointing it was. I recall it being a "neighborhood" festival where people could freely enter and exit. The chain link boundaries and $20 entrance fee were appalling. The minimal size of the crowd speaks to the lack of participation from locals. I will never again include this on my list of "must-do" events in Los Angeles.

[Melinda]

At least it wasn't as bad as last year, when the rude bouncer guy told me to "GO AROUND" before I could finish my sentence -- "I just want to get to the supermarket and I live here."

This year my daughter and I were allowed in because we were on our to the gelatto place. (You are allowed in to access the businesses, something the Sunset Junction site does not publicize.)

It wasn't so bad -- nice music, people-watching. etc. Still, it's kind of annoying to us residents when we feel both inconvenienced and excluded in our own neighborhood.

[ghetto youth]

the line up on the sanborn stage was amazing :)