WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27, 2003
Volume 2, Issue 244
FR
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Santa Monica Daily Press A newspaper with issues
FANTASY 5 14, 18, 2, 36, 19 DAILY 3
Vendors struggle with market overhaul Shopkeepers worried rising rents will force them out of Brentwood Country Mart
Afternoon picks: 7, 2, 4 Evening picks: 6, 7, 0
Daily Press Staff Writer
DAILY DERBY
A plan to rejuvenate the Brentwood Country Mart threatens to force out small merchants who have been in business at the shopping mall for years. The merchants, who range from a thrift shop for cancer survivors to a toy store and a cookie shop, face higher rents because of Santa Monica developer James Rosenfield’s future plans. Rosenfield, who recently bought the 1948 colonial-style mall, plans to spend millions of dollars renovating the oncethriving mall. “Everybody is so scared of this guy, they don’t know what he’s doing,” said Adrienne Fayne, a volunteer at the
1st Place: 8, Gorgeous George 2nd Place: 4, Big Ben 3rd Place: 12, Lucky Charms
Race Time: 1:43.57
NEWS OF THE WEIRD by Chuck Shepard
David Mitchell, 35, was arrested in June in Omaha, Neb., on charges of false imprisonment and making terroristic threats, accused of having locked up his wife, Polly, every time he left the house over a two-year (and maybe longer) period. He was always with her in public, and intimidated her from reporting him. David always had only a cell phone so he could take it with him when he left the house, but he had recently gotten a home phone for Internet access, allowing Polly to call her sister one day when he was out.
QUOTE OF THE DAY “Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.” – Oscar Wilde
INDEX Horoscopes Out and about, Cancer . . . . . . . . . .2
Local Public Safety Building opens . . . . .3
Commentary Celebrate man’s mind . . . . . . . . . . .4
Real estate Days on the market . . . . . . . . . . . . .8
State Recall battle heats up . . . . . . . . . .11
International The world in brief . . . . . . . . . . . . .14
Sports Sampras bids farewell . . . . . . . . . .15
People in the News Bobby Brown arrested . . . . . . . . .20
American Cancer Society Discovery Shop, a non-profit thrift store that’s been at the mart for the past eight years. “He’s got everybody on a month-tomonth lease. Everybody is kind of precarious at this point ...”
BY JOHN WOOD
John Wood/Daily Press
Above: Olive Rose, a volunteer at the American Cancer Society Discovery Shop, helps shopper Gloria Martel, of Brentwood. The Discovery Shop is one of the merchants at the Brentwood Country Mart that fears rising rents will push them out. Right: The courtyard of the Country Mart in the 1950s.
“Rents do need to go up somewhat because the property was struggling so much that rents had fallen.” — JAMES ROSENFIELD Owner, Brentwood Country Mart
Rosenfield in January bought the 30,000-square-foot mall on the southeast corner of 26th Street and San Vicente Boulevard from John E. Anderson, the namesake of UCLA’s Anderson Business School. Rents at the mall are likely to double or triple once the existing leases expire, shopkeepers say. That appears to have spelled the end for the mall’s gift shop, whose owner on Monday said her goodbyes to the other merchants and closed her doors for See COUNTRY MART, page 5
Police, fire to beef up terrorist attack protection BY JOHN WOOD Daily Press Staff Writer
City Hall on Tuesday accepted more than $400,000 to protect Santa Monica against possible terrorist attacks. Most of the money will be used to purchase better supplies and protective equipment for local firefighters and police, as well as for search and rescue teams, and those that respond to hazardous materials. About $75,000 will be spent to install bulletproof windows on the perimeter of the third and fourth floors of the new Public Safety Facility. The first two floors of the building, which will house all of Santa Monica’s fire and police personnel, already are equipped with bullet-proof glass. The top floors were originally slated to receive the bullet-proof glass but the funding for those windows was taken away because of City Hall’s budget deficit. Besides the $75,000 in bullet-proof glass, City Hall will split the remainder of the $418,029 in grants in three categories. The first is for
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chemical-resistant coveralls and air-filtering cartridges so fire and police officials can spend extended periods of time in contaminated areas. Urban search and rescue teams, which are called into action when buildings collapse, or during earthquakes and serious traffic accidents, also will receive money to upgrade the tools and equipment they use. And Santa Monica’s hazardous materials
response team will be given funding for more sophisticated detection equipment used to locate hazardous material leaks or possible biological outbreaks. All of the grants are federal and don’t require any matching funds from City Hall. The state distributes the grants to counties throughout California based on their size and See GRANT, page 6
Trader Joe’s is smart, not snooty BY MARY MCNAMARA Associated Press Writer
LOS ANGELES — Traditionally, Los Angeles has been depicted in film and on television in two ways: the really violent moral corruption of South-Central and the really tacky moral corruption of Beverly Hills. But in the first season of HBO’s “Six Feet Under,” there was a tiny ray of hope. Two of the characters — David Fisher and his male lover — were seen chatting and pushing a cart
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through a Trader Joe’s parking lot. Trader Joe’s! A local store not on Rodeo Drive! The brown paper bags rustled convincingly, the cars jockeyed for parking in the signature impossibly small lot ... why, it seemed just as if someone who actually lived in Los Angeles had something to do with the script. Then, two stupid-looking white guys, waiting for David’s parking space, shouted out a homophobic epithet. This worked as a plot point but not as a reality check. See TRADER JOE’S, page 6
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