INSIDE
S A N TA M O N I C A
3 FLORIDIANS ARRESTED FOR PIER STABBING
REFLECTING THE CONCERNS OF THE COMMUNITY
smmirror.com
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October 16 – October 22, 2020 Volume XLXVIII, Issue 63
Santa Monica Bans Street Performers at Peak Times at Promenade and Pier City suspends the issuance of permits for street performers at the Pier, Third Street Promenade, and Transit Mall By Sam Catanzaro
The City of Santa Monica has banned street performances during peak hours and suspended issuing permits citing COVID-19 health concerns. “To ensure compliance with Los Angeles County social distancing requirements and the County’s prohibition on live audiences for street performers, the City of Santa Monica’s latest emergency supplement suspends the issuance of permits for street performers at the Pier, Third Street Promenade, and Transit Mall until December 31, 2020,” the City of Santa Monica said in a press release this week. According to the City, street performers will not be allowed in those spaces during their most crowded times, after 12 p.m. Monday through Friday and on weekends and holidays. In addition, the City has banned street performers in those spaces from encouraging persons to gather to observe the performance. The order also requires performers to comply with all County social distancing requirements, including wearing face coverings. The Santa Monica Mirror asked the City of Santa Monica the following question: If street performers are banned during peak hours and if [they] are [prohibited] from
Photo: Third Street Promenade (Facebook)
A guitarist on the Third Street Promenade, pre-COVID.
encouraging people gathering, many of them are going to see a loss of money normally earned from onlookers. What does the City say to such people impacted and is there any relief available for them? In response, Constance Farrell, City of Santa Monica Public Information Officer, provided the following statement.
“The restrictions for street performers is in direct response to LA County rules around not gathering and events. The 27th supplement ensures our local program is compliant with County rules aimed at protecting public health during the COVID-19 public health emergency. We look forward to a time in the future when our
public spaces are enlivened with artists in permitted locations, but for now, the focus is on public health. We’ll continue to advocate for state and federal funding to support our community and local businesses through this unprecedented crisis.”
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October 16 – October 22, 2020
Pedestrian Fatally Struck by Car Crossing Pico Boulevard Fatal traffic collision occurs Tuesday morning By Sam Catanzaro
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A woman was fatally struck by a vehicle while crossing Pico Boulevard in Santa Monica Tuesday morning. According to the Santa Monica Police Department, on October 13 around 8 a.m., officers responded to a radio call for service regarding a traffic collision involving a female pedestrian and vehicle at Pico Boulevard and Stewart Avenue. When officers arrived, they discovered a pedestrian in the roadway suffering from severe head trauma. SMPD officers rendered immediate medical aid to the pedestrian before Santa Monica Fire Department Paramedics arrived to provide additional medical treatment. “Unfortunately, the pedestrian succumbed to her injuries as she was being transported to a local hospital,” said SMPD Captain Saul Rodriguez. The involved vehicle along with the driver was on scene when officers arrived. The driver is cooperating with the investigation and there
Photo: Citizen App.
The scene of a fatal traffic collision on Pico Boulevard Tuesday morning.
are no preliminary indications the driver was impaired, according to the SMPD. “A preliminary investigation revealed a vehicle traveling southbound along Stewart Avenue struck the pedestrian while making an eastbound turn onto Pico Blvd. The pedestrian was struck as she was walking in a crosswalk at the intersection,” Rodriguez said. The victim’s identity have not yet been released, pending notifications and an investigation, Investigators are interested in speaking with anyone who was in the area near the time of the collision. Anyone with additional information is encouraged to contact Investigator Scott Pace at (310) 458-8954, Sergeant Boyd at (310) 458-2180 or the SMPD at (310) 458-8495.
Three Florida Residents Arrested in Santa Monica Pier Stabbing
Three victims taken to hospital in Saturday night stabbing on Santa Monica Pier By Sam Catanzaro
Three Florida residents have been arrested in connection to a stabbing on Santa Monica Pier that sent three victims to the hospital over the weekend. According to Santa Monica Police Department Lt. Saul Rodriguez, on October 10 around 8:30 p.m., officers responded to a radio call for service of a fight in progress. Officers on the pier arrived quickly and
discovered it was a stabbing, according to Rodriguez. Police discovered three adult male victim’s at the scene and provided immediate medical aid. Santa Monica Fire Department Paramedics responded to the scene for additional medical treatment and later transported all three victims to a local hospital with non-life threatening injuries. Three suspects were taken into custody at the scene: Robert Thomas Jarvis (a 20-year-old white male from Florida), Matthew Christian Jarvis (a 19-year-old white male from Florida) and Meghan Crowley (a 24-year-old white female from Florida). All three were booked for assault with a deadly weapon. Images of the suspects are not yet available, the SMPD says.
October 16 – October 22, 2020
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October 16 – October 22, 2020
Santa Monica Spa Owner Admits Price Gouging in Sale of Scarce N95 Masks Niki Schwarz, owner of Tikkun Holistic Spa, pleads guilty to federal charges By CHaD WIntHroP
A Santa Monica day spa owner was charged this week in federal court with accumulating N95 respirators in anticipation of the COVID-19 pandemic and then price gouging by selling the scarce masks at vastly inflated prices – sometimes nearly 1,100 percent over list price. Niki Schwarz, 55, of Santa Monica, the owner of Tikkun Holistic Spa, was named in a criminal information charging her with one count of hoarding and price gouging. In a plea agreement also filed today, Schwarz agreed to plead guilty to the misdemeanor offense. In the plea agreement, Schwarz admitted that in February she began accumulating N95 respirators in anticipation of a shortage that would be caused by a global pandemic resulting from the spread of the novel coronavirus. From the beginning of February
until the end of June, Schwarz accumulated nearly 20,000 N95 masks that had been manufactured by 3M (list price ranging from $1.02 to $1.27) and Alpha Pro (list price of 86 cents). In March, the United States government designated N95 respirators as “scarce materials” under the Defense Production Act of 1950 due to the overwhelming need of health care providers dealing with COVID-19 patients to use personal protective equipment. Schwarz admitted that she obtained the N95 respirators for the purpose of reselling them at above-market rates, and that she sold the masks for up to $15 each. Schwarz “accumulated and resold the masks at prices in excess of the prevailing market prices willfully, that is, with knowledge that masks had been designated as scarce materials and with knowledge that accumulation of the designated materials to resell in excess of prevailing market prices was unlawful,” according to the plea agreement. On March 1, an associate informed Schwarz that the associate was going to stop selling N95 masks because she believed it was crime – and that price gouging could result in one year in prison – but Schwarz continued to sell the masks at inflated prices. The hoarding and price gouging offense
Photos: Tikkun Holistic Spa (Facebook)
Niki Schwarz of Tikkun Holistic Spa.
that Schwarz admits in the plea agreement carries a statutory maximum sentence of one year in federal prison. Schwarz will receive a summons directing her to make an initial appearance in United
States District Court, likely in early November. This matter was investigated by the United States Postal Inspection Service. Schwarz was not immediately available for comment.
The Coalition of Santa Monica City Employees proudly endorse and ask for your vote for
Ana Maria Jara
Terry O'Day
Gleam Davis
Kristin McCowan
Ted Winterer
COUNCILMEMBER 35 year Pico Neighborhood renter
MAYOR PRO TEMPORE 22 Year Pico Neighborhood resident
COUNCILMEMBER 34 year Santa Monica resident
COUNCILMEMBER Third generation Santa Monican
COUNCILMEMBER 28 year Santa Monica resident
committed to:
committed to:
committed to:
committed to:
committed to:
The City's Cradle to Career initiative
Preserving and creating affordable housing
Public Safety
Protecting the City’s partnership with Santa Monica schools – funding playgrounds and classrooms
Promoting a safer and more sustainable Santa Monica that is pedestrian, bike and micro mobility-friendly
Making Santa Monica a better place for young families - regardless of socio-economic status.
Steering our city through a recovery from the economic and social impacts of the COVID-19 virus.
Expanding educational opportunities
Providing an independent voice and home grown perspective to council
Addressing our most important challenge: further reducing homelessness, down 8% last year.
Protecting vulnerable youth
Converting Big Blue Bus to zero emission / zero carbon
Ensuring all City decisions support social justice and equity
Paid for by Coalition of Santa Monica City Employees PAC. 1223 Wilshire Blvd., #1423, Santa Monica CA 90403-5400. Not authorized by a candidate or a committee controlled by a candidate.
Guiding our community through recovery from the COVID-19 Crisis and answering the outcry for racial justice
Building on last year’s 16% decrease in crime while reforming our police department to find cost savings and to assure racial justice.
October 16 – October 22, 2020
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O.C. Man Faces Federal Charges for Allegedly Setting SMPD on Fire Nathan Wilson, 27, faces up to 20 years in prison
An Irvine man was taken into federal custody this week on charges alleging he set fire to a Santa Monica Police Department car during civil unrest that accompanied widespread protests in late May. Nathan Wilson, 27, is charged in a federal criminal complaint with malicious damage to property owned by an institution or organization receiving federal financial assistance. Wilson was linked to the May 31 fire that destroyed the unmarked Santa Monica Police car when a witness told law enforcement they had driven Wilson to Santa Monica on that day and they believed he had set fire to a police car. Publicly available social media posts show that the person who set fire to the police car parked at the loading dock of the Santa Monic Civic Center was wearing certain clothing and accessories, had an American flag bandana over his face, and had a distinctive tattoo of a rifle on his left arm, according to an affidavit filed with the complaint. The witness directed authorities to one of Wilson’s social media accounts – an Instagram account under the handle “yup_i_eat_crayons” – where Wilson had posted a “selfie” taken in Santa Monica on May 31. In his Instagram selfie, Wilson appeared exactly like the person seen in other social media posts who stoked the fire that destroyed the police car, the affidavit alleges. In early June, the FBI and the Santa Monica Police Department issued a wanted poster for the person later identified as Wilson. After receiving tips and conducting
investigations, law enforcement was not able to identify the perpetrator who caused the fire that destroyed the police car. That changed when Wilson became a suspect in a September 28 vehicle arson that occurred in Irvine, according to the affidavit. Following a domestic dispute that culminated with a fire in a vehicle owned by Wilson’s live-in partner, authorities obtained information that linked Wilson to the May 31 fire in Santa Monica. Wilson was taken into custody on October 9 when Santa Monica Police officers, in conjunction with the Irvine Police Department and the FBI, executed a search warrant at the Irvine residence and found Wilson hiding in a mattress box spring in the bedroom. During that search, authorities recovered items of clothing that appear to be the same seen on Wilson in the various photos taken near the destroyed police car. After Wilson was taken into custody by Santa Monica Police officers, the federal criminal complaint was signed by a United States magistrate judge late on October 9. Wilson was taken into federal custody this morning, and he is expected to make his initial appearance this afternoon in United States District Court in downtown Los Angeles. A criminal complaint contains allegations that a defendant has committed a crime. Every defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. f convicted of the malicious damage offense alleged in the complaint, Wilson would face a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in federal prison and a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years.
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Nathan Wilson.
Photo: FBI
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Santa Monica Zip Code Among Neighborhoods Donating Most to Joe Biden Survey breaks down donations to Biden campaign by zip code By Sam Catanzaro
Residents of a Santa Monica neighborhood have donated to Joe Biden’s campaign more than most zip codes in the country. A recent survey ranks Santa Monica’s 90402 zip code, which includes the North of Montana and Santa Monica Canyon neighborhoods, 33rd among all zip codes in the nation for total donations to Biden’s campaign. The survey, which analyzed Federal Election Commission records from Jan. 1, 2019-July 31, 2020, found that in total $406,924 has been donated to Biden’s campaign via 934 individual donations from 90402 residents. Only FEC-processed records from unique individuals–as opposed to outside groups or committees–were includes in the survey. Other Westside zip codes to make the top-50
are Brentwood’s 90049 (No. 10 at $633,707), Pacific Palisades’ 90272 (No. 25 at $457,347), Beverly Hills’ 90210 (No. 30 at $422,084) and Westwood’s 90024 (No 39. at $395,114) The zip code with the most donations to Biden in the nation is Chevy Chase, Maryland with $1,031,110 donated to the campaign among 3,121 donations.
Photo: Joe Biden (Facebook)
October 16 – October 22, 2020
LA County to Purchase 8 Motels to Help With Homeless Crisis LA County Board of Supervisors approves $75M to fund acquisition By toI CrEEL
To help fight the housing crisis and a large population of homeless individuals, Los Angeles County has voted to acquire eight motels. On Tuesday September 29 the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to approve the $75.5 million to fund the project. The funding would be split up two ways: $60.7 million would come from a grant in the State’s Project Homekey program and roughly $14.7 million would come from federal CARES Act money. The housing will serve as interim and permanent supportive housing, helping to target the thousands of homeless individuals that reside in LA County. The eight properties that span from San Gabriel Valley to the South Bay will have to be renovated, according to the Count. Under the rules of the $600 million Project Homekey program individual jurisdictions are obligated to provide matching funds for all acquisition costs over $100,000 per unit.
The following are the hotels LA is looking to acquire: Motel 6 Baldwin Park, Motel 6 Hacienda Heights, Motel 6 Harbor City, Motel 6 Long Beach, Motel 6 Norwalk, Motel 6 Whittier Travel Plaza Inn Long Beach Boulevard Compton and Willow Tree Inn Compton. All of the hotels must be acquired by December 30, 2020. The project as a whole is modeled off of a similar idea with a similar name— Project Roomkey, which aimed to use empty hotel rooms as temporary housing for homeless persons more at risk for the novel coronavirus (the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions). The program was able to house more than 5,000 homeless individuals but did not meet its original goal to shelter 15,000 people.
Photo: Google
The Willow Tree Inn in Compton, one of eight motels LA County is looking to house homeless individuals in.
Mario, a fresh vision for safety, sustainability, and economic stewardship
Change is Needed Now! Vote for a new councilperson unencumbered by special interests, willing to make a better and more inclusive Santa Monica!
I will work to improve our quality of life! • Help to reduce crime ensuring the safety for all citizens • Increase affordable housing, and protect rent control • Improve resident services by overhauling financial management • Resist developments exceeding our resource capacities • Expand business development, and job creation
Mario4council.com Paid for by Mario Fonda-Bonardi for City Council 2020. FPPC ID-1430878.
October 16 – October 22, 2020
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Petition Calls for Bonin to Hold Public Saftey Town Hall Serving Area since 1996 Locally Owned Business
The scene of a September 19 Venice double shooting.
Petition circulating citing increase in crime By Sam Catanzaro
Over 800 people have signed a petition calling for Councilmember Mike Bonin to
Photo: Citizen App.
hold a virtual Venice public safety town hall citing a surge in crime. “Dear Councilman Bonin, there has been a surge in crime in Venice. We, your constituents, call on you to hold an immediate online town hall with the Venice Neighborhood Council to address these issues and answer constituents’
Bonin, see page 9
UCLA Health to Use Faster COVID-19 Test
SwabSeq testing platform to be rolled out after FDA approval
Scientists at UCLA Health will soon be using a new coronavirus testing technology capable of assessing thousands of individual samples for COVID-19 simultaneously and producing accurate results in 12 to 24 hours. The SwabSeq testing platform, developed collaboratively by UCLA researchers and a UCLA-founded startup, is quicker and less expensive than the widely used polymerase chain reaction method, which requires extracting RNA from samples and can take days to process, the scientists said. “This is a technological breakthrough that will dramatically increase the amount of COVID-19 testing while reducing the wait time for results and costs,” said Dr. John Mazziotta, vice chancellor for UCLA Health Sciences and CEO of UCLA Health. SwabSeq takes a person’s saliva and attaches a type of molecular “bar code” to each sample, allowing scientists to combine large batches of samples together in a sequencing machine and rapidly identify those that have the virus. The testing method, which received emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Oct. 6, can also be applied to nasal and oral COVID-19 testing samples and can be scaled up easily, according to the
researchers. “SwabSeq is highly scalable because it leverages two decades of advances in genomic sequencing technology,” said Eleazar Eskin, chair of UCLA’s Department of Computational Medicine, who was part of the research team that the developed the new platform. “Using SwabSeq, a relatively small lab can process tens of thousands of samples per day.” The UCLA scientists have been leading a coalition of academic and industrial labs around the country and the world in developing the technology and scaling up testing. “UCLA has been at the forefront of taking SwabSeq from an initial technology to validating its use in large-scale testing of real patients,” said Sriram Kosuri, a UCLA assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry and co-founder and CEO of the startup Octant, which created the technology on which SwabSeq is based. “We jump-started a whole community of researchers now using the technique to help bring people back to work and school.”
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October 16 – October 22, 2020
OPINION
Which Santa Monica Do You Prefer to Live & Work In?
SMa.r.t. Santa Monica Architects for a Responsible Tomorrow
Santa Monica’s Governance Last I heard, we are a country “by the people and for the people.” But Santa Monica operates on a different premise. Our City Council is under the influence of developers, not the residents. They treat our residential tax dollars like monopoly money – nearly bankrupting us while holding onto power. As a result, our beautiful beach town is quickly losing its special innate character. What the City Council and staff are implementing has little if any benefit to the residents! Is this the city you want to live in? Defining a City So how do you build and maintain a beautiful, enduring city. Each city has its unique and distinctive character. Its sense of place is its most important aspect. A sense of place creates a feeling of home. Urban design in medieval cities was considered an art form. Urbanism was not a bureaucratic or economic process, but creating a legacy of beautiful places and experiences essential to a community’s durability. Urbanism is also about freedom and mingling. Should every city feel the same and look the same? Current Planning In this era of explosive growth, we are fast removing beauty from
our urban areas. When cities start to fail due to overcrowding and infrastructural stress, how do we bring this deterioration under control? Should our city be governed by a City Council that abuses or outright neglects both our codes and our residents instead of protecting our legacy of beauty? Will the renaissance come after this Covid plague? If you had a chance to replan your city, what would come to mind? Is it proper to legislate good design? We have a challenge to combine matters of code, density, institutions, infrastructure, culture, etc., all contributing to our urban fabric. The Effect on Santa Monica Instead of protecting this legacy of beauty, we have a City Council and Planning Commission that believes density is a solution to our problem. “Our state is suffering from a housing crisis and Santa Monica is committed to being part of the solution,” said Mayor McKeown in approving an emergency Interim Zoning Ordinance on March 10, 2020. But frankly, you have to be out to lunch to be pushing for more housing. Housing increases come with substantial increases in infrastructure, and guess who pays when new projects are built and water is needed – the residents! In addition, there is zero talent guiding our economic policies. Santa Monica has a problem with spending, not with revenue. We need to live within our means – looking into the future while maintaining the past.
Santa Monica’s Future So what is our future, how do we preserve our DNA, our culture and our natural environment? We don’t need to just recover, we need to make our city better. Density along with necessary increase in infrastructure is not the answer. And there is no good urbanism without good architecture, essential to a city’s durability. How do you maintain our beachfront environment when we are morphing from classical cities to dystopian wastelands of freeways, highrises, and sprawl? If we were really addressing climate change – with the Council living up to its stated concern about sustainability – all new buildings would be net zero which would inherently limit these buildings to three stories – so no more highrise in Santa Monica – done, end of conversation! And architecture needs to be tied to place and culture – we don’t need facadism. Winston Churchill said, “we shape the building and then the building shapes us.” And philosopher Alain de Botton later wrote that “bad architecture is a frozen mistake writ large.” This is not the time to be adding more office density. “Adaptive reuse” will be the norm instead of “demolish and build higher,” with vacant offices, hotels, big box retail, shopping centers, supermarkets and their parking lots – the implications are staggering! Due to e-commerce, we will have all the building area we need to satisfy
housing demand – it all just needs to be repurposed! And this space is primarily on commercial corridors with transit and bike lanes! And streets without taller buildings provide a better walking environment with more trees, sunlight, and cooler temperatures. Instead of living in faceless mid-rise boxes, we need neighborhoods and communities for families – 2, 3, & 4 stories, not 6, 7 & 8. And Accessory Dwelling Units that can increase density without hurting neighborhood character. It is predicted only 25% of shopping malls will survive. Wouldn’t Santa Monica Place make an interesting residential community mixed in with small businesses. Wouldn’t the Promenade become alive again with surrounding alleys that connect to parking becoming landscaped arcades. How do we look at Santa Monica Place, Bergamot, the Promenade, Santa Monica Airport in the future? And our neglected infrastructure (delayed street repairs, updating water treatment plants, etc.) pension debt, community needs (increased crime, homelessness, etc.) along with our significant revenue reduction (40% projected) should be more than enough reason to replace this City Council on November 3rd! It’s critical the Santa Monica community wake up to this potentially very dark future if the incumbents are re-elected!
SMart, see page 9
October 16 – October 22, 2020
SMart, from page 8
A Summary of Concern More of our residents need to understand what is happening in our city. Piecemeal development is leading us to the brink of turmoil if not extinction! Catastrophes can unfold gradually, and when you have continuous growth in a finite system such as our 8.4 square mile city limits, this gradual growth can lead to just such a long-term catastrophe. Long-term planning often means sacrificing present concerns. Realizing this need for growth coupled with the uncertainty in our health, economic, and social systems makes this city election even more critical. And Santa Monica’s failure of leadership was never more evident than on May 31st. With protesters peacefully demonstrating, looters were prepared and organized – our
Bonin, from page 7 questions,” reads the petition, which as of noon Monday has 864 supporters. Those who signed the petition mentioned recent shootings, encampment fires, dirty sidewalks, robberies and drugs as among reasons for their support. “The ineptitude and dereliction of duty by Mr. Bonin is appalling. People are put in harms way daily and this does not need to be so. We have lived here for over 10 years now and when we bought our home 7 years ago —
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city was not! With unqualified people in leadership roles this is a glaring example of our Councils’ inability to govern. We have a City Council who demonstrates fiscal irresponsibility combined with a significant lack of transparency. Residents filed a lawsuit to stop the massive “Plaza at Santa Monica” in the heart of our downtown. And last week Council approved the Miramar – a 10 story, 900 foot long cruise ship about to dock in our downtown – three football fields long and twice the size of the Santa Monica Place shopping center. And still another lawsuit where the Council spent over $25 million denying the community’s right to district voting which would have provided more neighborhood representation. Recently Santa Monica Forward, a group founded and supported by the development community and substantial donors to the incumbent Council, shamefully submitted
a report to the city outlining policies for financial stability in this Covid 19 pandemic by accelerating the approval process for “projects with high revenue potential,” enacting emergency code provisions increasing building height and volume, substantially reducing public review, reducing or omitting required parking, selling city-owned properties to developers, with residents to pay for supporting water, power, emergency equipment, etc., etc. It reads like a developer’s fantasy – but it’s not, it’s our reality. We need a Council that represents the people of our city – not the developers who exploit it. We need to stop relying on development and taxes – rejecting the philosophy of “more, more, more.” The failure of our City Council leadership is plain and simple, and this Council who got us into this mess are not the ones to get us out – we need a new
Council! This election will be Santa Monica’s most consequential in decades. Let’s turn this election into an opportunity! We need to preserve our beachfront community with its low scale and natural environment and live within our means! To avoid the collapse of our community – we need to vote in a new Council, to BUILD BACK BETTER, to vote for NEW LEADERSHIP! Ron Goldman for SMa.r.t. (Santa Monica Architects for a Responsible Tomorrow) Thane Roberts, Architect, Robert H. Taylor AIA, Ron Goldman FAIA, Architect, Dan Jansenson, Architect, Building and Fire-Life Safety Commission, Samuel Tolkin Architect, Marc Verville, CPA (inactive). For previous articles see www.santamonicaarch.wordpress.com/ writings.
invested all of our savings — it was a very nice neighborhood; things were very different in Venice back then. The downward spiral was devastatingly quick,” reads a comment from an individual named Kat Singh. According to LAPD Senior Lead Officer Adrian Acosta speaking at the August Venice Neighborhood Council meeting, Venice now contains 30 percent of all of the crime in the Pacific Division, which also contains Mar Vista, Playa del Rey, Playa Vista, Palms and Westchester, as well as LAX. LAPD data shows that while property crime has decreased by 12.2 percent year to date,
motor vehicle theft has increased by 51.5 percent and violent crime has increased by 8.9 percent in the Pacific Area this year. Shooting victims have increased by 23.5 percent while shots fired have increased by 58.1 percent, according to data. Complete data can be found here: http://lapd-assets.lapdonline.org/assets/ pdf/pacprof.pdf While Bonin has not responded to the Santa Monica Mirror for a request for comment, petition organizer Alexander Poe said that the following response came from Bonin’s Venice deputy, Nisa Kove: “We are aware of this and the
Councilmember is working with LAPD to gather more details and figure out next steps to appropriately respond. I’m meeting with constituents frequently and making sure the Councilmember is aware of the community’s public safety concerns.” Poe, however, says this is not enough. “While I respect Nisa as a member of our community, I do not find this to be a sufficient response to the current situation. I continue to believe that we deserve a public town hall with our elected representative, not individual meetings with select constituents,” Poe wrote.
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October 16 – October 22, 2020
“Wine Crush (Vas-y Coupe!)”- A Peek At Harvest Time in France CENTER STAGE
With Beverly Cohn, Editor-At-Large
To be honest, it took a while to figure out exactly what the format was in this up close and very personal look at harvest time at the Domain Jacques Selosse in the Avize region of Champagne, France. Was Wine Crush (Vas-y Coupe!) a narrative film? Documentary? Docudrama? Cinema Vérité or Observational Cinema? However, as I got into the film, it finally became clear that this delightful journey, capturing the heart and soul of the grape-harvesting season, was shot in the style of Cinema Vérité.* Wonderfully produced and directed by Laura Naylor, this enchanting film presents an intimate look at the daily lives of a group of working class men, some of whom have been showing up for the harvest drive at the Jacques Selosse champagne vineyards for the last twenty-five years. The film captures the heart and soul of this particular harvest experience, which takes place from August through November, culminating with the bottling of the wine. Complimenting the excellent direction, the
film is exquisitely shot by cinematographer Ryan de Franco, and begins with a series of establishing shots – an outdoor barbeque, men working in the vineyard, a worker tasting a grape, and scenes of women brought in to prepare meals for the workers. As the men arrive from different parts of France, they warmly greet each other as most of them have known each other for a long time. Sleeping preparations have been made and after a slight discussion over the arrangements, everything is settled amicably. Soon, we are taken into the vineyard where every day the grapes are carefully cut and placed into crates. It’s backbreaking work, but the men are cheerful, playful, very respectful of each other, and take their work very seriously. These workers are not just pickers, but are experts in their love of the grape and are capable of detecting and identifying the inherent complexities of a particular wine. On their cigarette breaks, they lie down amongst the vines and playfully joke with each other or share family stories. The wife of one of the workers is part of the group of women who will be preparing the mouth-watering meals.
Bev, see page 11
By Kathryn Whitney Boole Critics are panning Emily in Paris as superficial and shallow, offering a narrow view of one of the great cities of the world. It is worth watching however. The maxim holds that “No publicity is bad publicity,” so of course everyone is watching the series. Even Parisians are complaining that they are portrayed as stereotypes. That means they watched it. The City of Paris is really the center of the show, Like a classic movie star, it only allows the camera to focus on its “good side” here. “Emily” played by Lily Collins, seems sometimes to be an “accessory” placed in the city. We never get the chance to see much beneath the surface of Emily or her colorful friends, and that’s the reason for most of the critical reviews. Emily is a social media guru who has been sent from Chicago to a Parisian marketing firm to ramp up
L-R: Cigarette break for two seasoned harvest workers - Samuel and Miguel Delhaye
Harvesters taking a well-earned break.
Rated TV-MA 10 30-Minute Episodes streaming on Netflix Released October 2nd
FILM REVIEW: “EMILY IN PARIS”
BEHIND THE SCREEN
Photos: Courtesy of First Run Features
Anselme Selosse the son of the founder, Jacques, is now responsible for the day to day operations of the domain.workers Samuel and Miguel Delhaye
their “presence.” She thus becomes rooted in the upscale side of Paris. The problem is that she’s so involved in publicity that she misses/ messes up face-to-face relationships. She doesn’t even bother to immerse herself in a French class to learn the language of the city to which she’s been transplanted. The show plays like a soap opera, predictable for the most part, with characters who seem to be performing in a commercial. In contrast, my two summers in Paris were too real to be believable. If I were to create a series based on my own experience it would be a polar opposite of this show, and still viewers would call it a narrow perspective. That complexity is the beauty of Paris. At the age of 19, I took two months off from a job I had in London. I recklessly decided to travel to Paris alone, a city I’d never been to, with the equivalent of $20 in my pocket. I enrolled in the Alliance Francaise to learn the language and immediately got a job as an au pair in a run down hotel/boarding house in one of the poorest arrondissements.
KWB Film Review Emily in Paris, see page 11
October 16 – October 22, 2020
Bev, from page 10 There are delightful scenes of the cooks comparing recipes, deciding what food items needed to be purchased, and fun shopping trips to the markets. But, with the younger members of the family taking on greater roles in the running of the business, there are occasional culture clashes between the aging pickers and the younger family members who might not embrace all of their traditions. However, comes the evening, they all gather in a beautiful, candle-lit dining room and between the gourmet food, plenty of fabulous wine, and singing, tensions of the day soon melt away as Brian Bender and Deniz Cuylan’s rousing musical score fully supports the joy and spirit of these people. There are sweet scenes of the workers with their families illuminating their lives away from the vineyard. Director Naylor was meticulous in painting crew with a fine brush so that they are multi-dimensional showing how they spend their days away from the vineyard. A very delightful scene is with one of the workers playing a variation of bocce ball with his wife, who is also happens to be one of the fabulous cooks. At last, the harvest is completed, the dorm is stripped, floors are mopped, their pay is handed out, and these dedicated workers, most of whom will return next year, are once more headed home to their families. For anyone interested in an intimate look
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at a complicated wine harvest, this film walks you through the process from beginning to end, capturing the humanity of everyone involved as well as the symbiotic relationship between the owners and the workers. It also reveals the pivotal role Mother Nature plays in the final product, which could impact on the level of success of the harvest. However, one can see why the Domain Jacques Selosse, now run by the founder’s son Anselme, has earned an excellent reputation for producing very fine champagne, perhaps due in part to using oak barrels for fermentation rather than the usual stainless steel. The film features: Miguel Delhaye, Samuel Delhaye, Bastien Favier, Léa Favier, Bruno Santiago, Anselme Selosse, Caroline Selosse, Corinne Selosse, Guillaume Selosse, Michel Waret, and Renelle Waret. Wine Crush (Vas-y Coupe!) in French with English subtitles, is now streaming on AppleTV and Amazon. Oh! One other thing. I would recommend that you watch this 92-minute film on a full stomach as the food scenes are scrumptious and will have you salivating. Cinéma vérité or “truth cinema” was a French film movement of the 1960s that captured people in everyday situations with authentic, unscripted, predominantly improvised dialogue.
KWB Film Review Emily in Paris, from page 10 The only plumbing in my room was a sink with a trickle of cold water. The hallway toilet consisted of a hole in the floor that was shared with the mostly male residents of my floor – it had pages of newspaper hung over a rack on the door to use as toilet paper. The family who owned the hotel consisted of 10 men and 3 women. The men all slept in the same large room in bunks. My job was to wash dishes after breakfast and dinner, scrub the family’s laundry in the bathtub, hang shirts out of the windows to dry and press them with a heavy iron set on a hot plate. Thus, mine was a different view of Paris from Emily’s. But - I had so much fun that summer! I ended up teaching English to the kids in the family. I was invited to the breakfast and dinner table with them, and once my French was good enough they inundated me with questions about life in the US. The following summer I went back to Paris to experience a different side of the city and rented a room offered by a widow in an elegant arrondissement. That summer
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I was very lonely. Any large city offers a cornucopia of experiences. Emily’s seems shallow only because it’s such a narrow view of Paris. Emily in Paris was shot from late September through mid November 2019, on site in Paris, using real French actors for most of the roles. Producers, including Lily Collins and the prolific Darren Star (Sex and the City, Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place), must have thought that audiences who devour episodes of The Bachelor franchise every week would buy into this story, with its flippant characters, big-time. Then the pandemic struck worldwide and caused a sea change in the way we look at ourselves, at our personalities and our priorities. Therein lies the basis for much of the criticism of the series. Kathryn Whitney Boole has spent most of her life in the entertainment industry, which has been the backdrop for remarkable adventures with extraordinary people. She is a Talent Manager with Studio Talent Group in Santa Monica. kboole@gmail.com.
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