Permit Problems : Hot Spots in L.A. Feel Big Chill

There’s a troubled look in Danny Fried’s eyes as he prowls his Hollywood office, nursing a frozen yogurt and barking orders to his staff. In a few weeks he will open the doors on the China Club, a $2-million restaurant and rock club that’s already being hailed as the city’s next hot spot, and Fried knows he’s as good as gone if he doesn’t please the “right” people.

At stake is Fried’s reputation as a premier New York entertainment impresario who counts celebrities such as Rod Stewart, David Bowie and Julian Lennon among his loyal patrons. But in this case it’s not the rock-and-roll royalty that has Fried so concerned. It’s the law.

“Opening a club in New York is like kindergarten compared to L.A.,” said Fried, 41, who runs a club with the same name in Manhattan.

By the Rules

“If you want to survive here you have to play by the rules. You have to get approvals from the Police Department, the building department, the health department and God knows who else. You have to do everything exactly right. If not, you might as well pack your bags and get going.”

Fried’s concerns are familiar to those who follow the city’s volatile club scene. In recent months exclusive nightspots such as Heartbreak, b.c. and Helena’s have been falling like dominoes over alleged code violations, and Fried doesn’t want to be the next in line.

He has already delayed the opening of the North Argyle Avenue club, which he owns with Michael Barrett, for more than six months. And even now, as he leads a tour of the Deco-style venue, he spends as much time commenting on the motorized ramps for handicapped people as the hand-crafted mahogany bar, the stainless steel drink rails and the $350,000 sound system.

Words Lack Conviction

Fried solemnly declares he “will not open to be closed.” Yet his words lack conviction. These days club owners have to ponder whether it’s even possible to meet all the expectations of the bold and beautiful in this town without also running afoul of the boys in blue, who are often called out by disgruntled customers and other owners trying to stifle competition.

“The toughest doorman in town is the Fire Department,” said Richard Lewis, a publicist for the now-defunct Heartbreak. “It’s a shame that the city is being so restrictive.”

Authorities deny they are responsible for the bad vibes in clubland, even though Los Angeles has always had a reputation for rolling the sidewalks up early. They say the owners are the victims of their own arrogance and sloppiness. Chief Michael L. Fulmis of the Fire Department’s public safety section said many owners don’t even bother to obtain basic operating licenses before they fling open their doors for business.

But that’s little consolation to the hard-core club-goers--those people in black or Day-Glo clothing, torn jeans, dreadlocks, heavy leather and lacy halter tops who are able to bypass the long lines in front of the most popular clubs because their names are on the VIP lists.

Although the good times still roll on weekends, when places like downtown’s Vertigo and the Westside’s Peace Posse and Club Rubber are filled to the gills with patrons paying up to $20 a head, on weeknights many clubbies face the grim prospect of being all dressed up with no place to go.

For Aklia Chinn, a singer, actress and inveterate club-goer who is paid to promote various venues, police crackdowns on high profile clubs such as b.c. and even late night underground spots such as Water the Bush are becoming all too common. But Chinn still finds ample distractions.

She spends at least five nights a week at clubs such as Birthday Bash, the Last Shot, Opus Lily and Palooka Joes, places that are only known to the real hard-core clubbies. On Sundays and Mondays, she says: “I’m somewhere, but it probably wouldn’t be home.”

The small, spunky and disarmingly polite Chinn dresses in the standard club fare: black. She also shaves the bottom half of her head every two weeks to achieve her unique look, which has been showcased during cameo appearances on several television shows.

Chinn, 18, who lives with her mother in a Westlake apartment, concedes that she is totally taken with the clubbies’ life of dancing till dawn and sleeping as late as 4 p.m. “It’s nice,” she says, “because you know everyone. You bump into the same people wherever you go.”

Last week found her in the company of Todd, a skulky guitar player from New York who didn’t want his last name used. As Chinn weaved through the dense crowd at Peace Posse, passing out flyers for another club, Todd stood in the back. “L.A.’s no good,” Todd said. “Most of the clubs have to close at 2 a.m. Hey, I don’t even start getting screwed up until after 2 a.m.”

Peace Posse, which operates out of a seedy, rambling Mexican restaurant on West Pico Boulevard on weekends, is said by cognoscenti to be the city’s hottest club these days. Celebrities such as Marlee Matlin and Eric Stoltz have recently been spotted dancing to desperately loud hip-hop and reggae music, and lesser-known patrons often contend with long lines.

But Peace Posse, considered an underground club because it mostly attracts younger, more casual crowds by word of mouth, is only one of three types of clubs here. There are also underground underground clubs that move from one location to another to stay one step ahead of the law and more conventional places such as Vertigo that generally attract older, wealthier and more stylishly dressed patrons.

Just what makes a club fashionable is open to interpretation, since sweatboxes such as Peace Posse often enjoy more success than fashionable clubs such as the Stock Exchange downtown, which was recently forced to seek a reprieve on a delinquent $1.5-million loan from the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency. But most clubbies agree that celebrities are a major component. Another factor is a club owner’s reputation. Then, of course, there’s the crowd.

Attention-Grabbing

Just about everyone tends to look like they stepped off a Hollywood sound stage. But then again, one has to be very attractive or extremely misguided to strut around in torn muscle shirts and spandex pants. “Anything that really calls attention to your body is in,” said Belissa Cohen, a club chronicler. “People want to call attention to themselves.”

The music is also an important drawing card for clubs, which bypass mainstream artists such as Madonna for cutting edge acts such as Public Enemy, De La Soul, MC LYTE, Ice Tea and NWA, which has a dance floor hit called “Gangsta, Gangsta.”

“There’s a hunger out there for this stuff,” said one popular and rhapsodic club disc jockey. “Everyone’s totally into the mesmerization of people who are totally into the music.”

Matt Robinson, who operates Peace Posse and Funky Reggae with Sean McPherson, is known for running highly popular clubs--meaning the ones that are so crowded that people tend to merge into one big mass. “Unless you have a crush, people are not interested in your club,” said one regular. “The ones that last are the ones that are crowded. People have to feel that excitement.”

Robinson is also known for keeping tight rein on his clubs. He has not had any serious confrontations with the law so far, but he agreed that the closures have had a chilling effect on the city’s club scene.

“I don’t know if these people (law enforcement authorities) have something against club owners or if they’re just trying to kill L.A. night life in general,” Robinson said. “But it seems like authorities are taking a very hard stance against people going out dancing.”

Others, however, say the clubs are in serious trouble because of their arrogant disregard for the law and their snobbish--some would even say sadistic--treatment of patrons.

At the cavernous Vertigo, which holds about 1,400 people, common club-goers are prohibited from sitting in the leather booths that line the dance floor. The club maintains that the booths are reserved for VIPs, though they often remain unclaimed.

Another club that has since gone out of business had a reputation for particularly cruel treatment of restaurant patrons. When someone made a reservation, the club had a policy of taking the person’s full name and telephone number, then calling back and canceling the reservation if a check of sources around town revealed that the person lacked status.

Hard to Get In

And several clubs employ the selective door policy originated in New York, in which only the most famous and the most fashionable are allowed past the doorman.

Ironically, authorities say it’s the lines outside the clubs that often attract their unwanted attention. Vice cops in conservative suits routinely patrol the city’s commercial districts in search of the latest hot spots. And Fire Department investigators, who at least have the good taste to wear black uniforms, are out 365 days a year, including Christmas.

The Fire Department, which is the biggest thorn in the side of the clubs because of its strict enforcement of occupancy codes, closed 24 establishments this year.

Many later reopened. But Chief Fulmis said exclusive clubs are running into more trouble than ever before. “I’m sure the owners of these places think we’re picking on them,” Fulmis said. “But we certainly are not. The reasons we keep going back to these places is because we keep getting complaints.”

The Fire Department is especially vigilant in patrolling nightspots for good reason, Fulmis said: Officials proudly note that there has never been a fire fatality reported inside a Los Angeles drinking establishment, even though there are 3,508 licensed nightspots in town.

Neighbors Protest

Fulmis said the protests come from a variety of sources, including neighbors.

Jeffrey Jolson-Colburn, who covers the business end of the club culture for the Hollywood Reporter, said it’s common knowledge that club owners fink on one another. “If the owners got together and formed some sort of coalition they could help each other,” he said. “But they’re too competitive for that. They’re too busy dropping the dime on each other.”

The most publicized closure thus far, and the one that really stunned the club-going establishment, involved b.c. The $1-million nightspot on Sunset Boulevard, a cousin of the legendary MK in Manhattan, opened to incredible fanfare on Feb. 6, attracting the likes of Madonna and George Michael. Legend has it that the club was so packed that Jack Nicholson was even turned away one night. But within seven weeks it was gone, the victim of code violations and vociferous protest by neighbors who said patrons were engaging in sex acts on their lawns.

Police Commission investigators said b.c.’s owners never obtained a dance permit, though the nightspot was known as a dance club. The club also ran into problems over its liquor license.

“We met with b.c.’s owners twice before they opened, and we told them they were going wrong and made some recommendations,” Police Lt. Dan Koenig of the Hollywood Division vice squad said. “But they didn’t listen. b.c. is closed because they didn’t listen.”

No More L.A. Clubs

Bret Witke, a co-owner who is in the process of converting the building into an industrial-style restaurant, claims that he has no intention of opening another dance club in Los Angeles. Witke said he was wholly unprepared for the backlash the club generated. “This is Sunset Boulevard,” he said. “If you can’t put a club here, where can you put it?”

Despite owners’ complaints, authorities say permits are fairly easy to obtain. They can be purchased from existing businesses, which is the most common practice, or procured through various city departments. The problem owners often confront, however, is time. The permit process can often take six months or longer, officials concede.

Another of the New York offshoots that ran into permit problems was Heartbreak on North La Brea Avenue. Owner Lenny Berg spent three years searching for the right spot for his $700,000 club.

Heartbreak opened to capacity crowds Dec. 27 and was closed exactly three months later when authorities discovered it was operating without permits. In a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, Berg said the former owners assured him that the licenses were intact, when in fact the club had no dance permit and a restricted liquor permit.

Today, Berg is searching for a new site for his club, though he cannot afford to relocate until the suit is settled. Berg, who has returned to New York, said he learned about Los Angeles’ strict enforcement policy the hard way. “What I discovered is that dancing, drugs and other bad things go hand in hand as far as the authorities are concerned,” he said.

Thanks to Heartbreak and b.c., the New Yorkers who were once touted as the saviors of the city’s night life are being blamed for throwing it into disarray. But that doesn’t account for the problems of two other well-heeled clubs.

Helena’s, the long-running, exclusive West Temple Street supper club, closed in March after Police Commission investigators received a complaint that the club was operating without a dance permit.

Not Right Permit

Detective Warren C. Aller said investigators discovered that the club was licensed as an instructional dance academy, not a dance club. The owner, Helena Kallianiotes, who declined comment for this story, apparently decided to close rather than bring her business into compliance, Aller said.

Wall Street, on the other hand, was forcibly closed late last year after authorities uncovered a rash of problems. The swanky mid-Wilshire club, located in the landmark El Rey Theatre, received a conditional use permit to operate as a “cultural arts center” with dancing as an “ancillary” activity, Police Commission investigator Richard K. Rudell said.

Nearby apartment dwellers, however, said the club was attracting rowdy, bottle-throwing patrons who pierced the early morning calm with their blaring radios. “The conditions placed on them were continually violated,” Rudell said. “At no time did the club really operate as a cultural arts center, which it was supposed to be.”

Angelo Buonvicino, who operates Club Rubber at Olympic and La Cienega boulevards along with a group of partners that includes actor Mickey Rourke, knows what it’s like to clash with the law. Rubber was originally located downtown but was forced to close after two police raids for allowing dancing and serving alcohol without a permit.

‘Kept Getting Raided’

Buonvicino, a slightly built man who dresses in expensive Italian suits and greets patrons with gentle pats on the cheek, said it became clear that there was no point in challenging the law. “The place was very cool,” he said. “But it kept getting raided. In the end it all boils down to permits.”

Buonvicino’s business has been hassle free since he moved to the current site, a former restaurant with black walls and a thundering sound system, four months ago. The club also gained a lot of cachet when Bruce Springsteen recently popped in to play with the house band.

Because of all the problems citywide, however, some have suggested that the days of the larger clubs may be numbered.

The two founders of New York’s legendary Studio 54 recently announced that they are coming to Los Angeles to open not a club but a hotel. “Clubs are boring,” co-owner Steve Rubell said. Another hot rumor is that the clubs will be replaced by trendy billiard parlors.