Police Cork an Art Walk Tradition

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By Cassandra Reinhart, Special to the Independent

If life imitates art, Laguna Beach art gallery owners look like Evard Munch’s “The Scream.”

Art gallery owners are in an uproar after some were cited by undercover cops for providing alcohol without a license during the Thursday, Nov. 3, Art Walk. In total, seven local businesses were issued the misdemeanor citations. Laguna North Gallery, Salt Fine Art, La Botegga Gallery, Main Beach Fine Art, Poler, Nuance Home, and Townley Gallery were all cited, according to the police log.

Emir Bezdrob, owner La Botegga dell' Acquaforte Gallery, expresses frustration with the recent crackdown on alcohol.
Emir Bezdrob, owner La Botegga dell’ Acquaforte Gallery, expresses frustration with the recent crackdown on alcohol.

The 15-year Art Walk tradition allows gallery owners to open their doors to the public in the evening hours on the first Thursday of the month where they introduce new exhibitions, often accompanied by music, nibbles and until now, free wine.

“I believe we were not given proper notice. Fifteen years of serving wine versus cracking down in one day? I don’t believe that was the right way to do it,” said Tamerin Kelly of De Ruis Fine Arts. “I believe it was done wrong.”

The citation saga started last month when police summoned the Art Walk board and its 38 participating member galleries to a presentation about a new theft alert system and a reminder of local ordinances regulating alcohol and obstructions to public sidewalks.

Afterwards, a summary of the meeting was issued to participating galleries.

Emir Bezdrob didn’t see the email and wasn’t at the meeting with police. Bezdrob served wine. Last Thursday night two plain-clothes police officers entered his gallery, La Botegga, and handed his wife a criminal misdemeanor citation.

“If you have permission for 15 years to serve wine, and suddenly the police or the city decides not to serve the wine, they should give us some kind of time to figure out what to do,” Bezdrob said. “I would obey.”

Usually sparsely attended and peaceful, Art Walk’s board meeting Wednesday, Nov. 9, was instead packed with angry gallery and business owners upset at receiving violations. One of the gallery owners cited by police, who asked not to be identified because she could face deportation as a result of the citation, was there with an attorney suggesting those cited band together to fight the charges.

Forest and Ocean Gallery owner Ludo Leideritz, who attended both meetings, said Art Walk’s email correspondence not to serve was hazy.

Gallery owners pack an Art Walk meeting last week following the issuance of citations to gallery owners.
Gallery owners pack an Art Walk meeting last week following the issuance of citations to gallery owners.

“The letter that went out after the meeting should have been very clear to the members saying don’t serve alcohol; that should have been the very first line in red, big letters,” Leideritz said.

Jessica Fry, director of Signature Gallery and Art Walk marketing coordinator, said the Art Walk board rejected a request from police to issue warnings to members over serving alcohol. “We said ‘no’ and that is their responsibility to warn all of the galleries,” said Fry, who claimed police also pledged to initially issue only warnings to raise awareness. “This as you can see, this was clearly not the case and they went after galleries with strong force and without warning,” Fry said.

The local officers working undercover on Art Walk were working with agents of the state Alcohol Beverage Control. “Letters were distributed to many of the businesses about a week or so prior,” said Laguna Beach Police Sergeant Tim Kleiser.  “I don’t know which ones received the letters.”

Kleiser said the undercover officers are part of a downtown foot patrol, funded directly by the city, and that the enforcement began as a result of meetings with the Art Walk board over complaints that included drinking in public.

The misdemeanor charge carries up to a $1,000 fine or jail. The owners cited are slated for a Harbor Justice Center court appearance Dec. 22.

Laguna Beach Mayor Steve Dicterow said naturally the city supports all local businesses and wants them to not only abide by the law, but also understand it. “Clearly we want our police to enforce the laws and everyone to comply. On the other hand, we know Art Walk has been doing this right for a long time.

“If there was sudden enforcement without a heads up, that would be a surprise and I think we can do better,” Dicterow said.

The Art Walk board isn’t backing down. Fry said she has contacted state Assembly member Matthew Harper about amending recently enacted legislation that allows beauty salons and barber shops to pour beer or wine for patrons without charge. Fry wants the law to include art galleries, too.

But legislative action will come too late to help the businesses now confronting a looming court appearance.

And the crackdown is already having an impact on Art Walk, with several members seeking to cancel their membership and expressing concern the restrictions will hurt the event’s popularity, Fry said.

Bezdrob said in the end it’s not all about the wine. It’s about supporting, not hindering, the art scene in Laguna. “It’s one more nail in the coffin for the artwork initiative. The city is killing itself.”

 

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17 COMMENTS

  1. Welcome to the New Police State Laguna Beach art galleries. Next time they may show up in riot gear, hyper Hummers, rubber bullets, sound waves and tear gas………

    This is a true injustice on the part of the Chief of Police and whomever else decided this was in the best interests for all.

    As our tax dollar funded “serve and protect” contingency bust owners of art galleries while pedestrians and cyclists continue to be be killed and injured on our streets.

    When will this horrendous occurrence be brought up to the City Council??? When can we meet to mobilize OUR resistance to the tactics of fear?

  2. I do not know who decided to get a grant from the Alcohol Beverage Control (ABC) to hire police to walk the beat and bust art galleries but it was very short sighted.

    They not only went into galleries to enforce the law. They lingered in certain galleries and made some off color remarks about how much better the drinks would be if they just had some alcohol to put in it.

    I suspect there are people involved in all this that have a conflict of interest and have been working against the art walk for several years. The galleries were not causing problems. The other hanger-on businesses that all wanted to be part of art walk without supporting it by becoming sponsors caused a lot of problems with the booze.

    The law was changed in Laguna Beach a few weeks ago. Nothing on their social media page, nothing in the paper, promises to hand deliver notices to galleries ahead of time, saying that they would give out warnings….. it just goes on and on. I am hugely disappointed in this initiative. This did not need to go down this way. The city hurt their businesses and displayed some poor leadership.

  3. Many art walk guests will be disappointed and galleries are surely going to suffer low attendance at Art Walk. Laguna Beach is well known for its fabulous art walk and for serving wine at this monthly event. So why now have the City Council or the local police suddenly decided that after turning a blind eye for 15 years, they will now enforce the the alcohol law on the galleries? It will most certainly hurt the business and the sales that galleries rely on at Art Walk. Who’s bright idea was this? Certainly not the Laguna Beach Art Walk! Fair warning and adequate notice should have been given to galleries, not by those who run the Laguna Beach Art Walk, but by those enforcing the law, by those who have made changes to this 15 year tradition. Surely a warning could have been issued first before writing citations. No wonder the galleries are unhappy, particularly those who have received citations and were not aware of the new restrictions thrust upon them. Good on Laguna Beach City Council and your law enforcement for NOT looking after one of your biggest assests, the galleries.

  4. I find it very disturbing that there was not more notice given. The newspapers usually report whenever there will be a DUI checkpoint well in advance. why wasn’t this information distributed to the media to ensure the word got out? It is not art walks’s responsibility to inform their members about the law. Seems like the galleries were targeted and pedestrians walking around with wine glasses were ignored. This really reflects poorly on the city. It doesn’t appear they had the best interests of its businesses nor that of art walk in mind when they decided to go undercover and issue citations with very little if any notice.

  5. These are challenging times for retail. If you walk around the Village you’ll see loads of empty shops with “For Lease” signs. So why do our public servamts thnk the right thing to do is handicap our galleries more by banning free wine? Is their job easier of all the shops are vacant? Meanwhile, there is little to no enforcement of drivers texting or using phones!!!! May we please have Chief Workman back?

  6. In light of recent events regarding laguna beach artwalk:
    What our police department is doing in galleries is completely ILLEGAL. Our local police are not only doing this to our art galleries, but our bars as well. This is ILLEGAL and HARASSMENT. An under cover investigator is NOT permitted to trespass or enter your home/place of business without concent!
    Even with officers, It is in fact a violation of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. constitution “The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects personal privacy, and every citizen’s right to be free from unreasonable government intrusion into their persons, homes, businesses, and property — whether through police stops of citizens on the street, arrests, or searches of homes and businesses.” Without consent, the intrusion counts as a civil trespass and triggers Fourth Amendment protection. Even if it’s not a PI and it is a UO (as stated in the news article), it is still a fourth amendment violation and is considered trespassing if on private property.

  7. Great another long tradition under attack by the nanny state. How about cut off the tail that wags the dog.

    I cant tell you how many LBPD I have recorded on my dash cam running stop signs and not yielding to pedestrians. There is a reason this town is special and has a great community. Art walk is just part of it. Whats next nazi enforcement at Music in the Park or opening night at the Sawdust?

    Maybe I’ll edit together a video of these awesome LBPD drivers for friends at CBS to investigate. But it would be much nicer that these employees leave us citizens to enjoy the long established tradions that make Laguna an awesome place to live.

  8. Thanks Laguna PD for focusing on the most pressing needs of our community…tongue fully in cheek. I am at a total loss for words…

  9. On the night that people got citations, there was an event at the city hall. They were drinking wine. Did some research on the code. City hall exempted themselves from the rule that the businesses that support them had to comply with. How does that work?

  10. What a shame! How much did this monitoring of beverages and ticketing gallery owners cost the city (aka taxpayers) both monetarily and in resources? More importantly, how does this action address the main issues that compromise the overall safety of our community and visitors to our beautiful city?

    The residents of Laguna Beach would be better served by our officers using their skills and time to focus on REAL issues including,

    1. decreasing the activity of those who use our streets/roads as a race track. (example: outbound Laguna Canyon Rd from 9/10pm-3am.) The results are often fender benders but based on the number of almost daily sirens, the number of trips to the ER and deaths are probably up.

    2. Monitor canyon neighborhoods, surrounding open opace and Laguna Canyon Creek for homeless encampments, aka ticking time bombs. A fire here adversely impacts the entire city, not just Canyon residents. Think of the last three fires, starting with the fire that occurred near the a homeless shelter a couple nights ago.

    Bottom line, using our police officers to monitor beverages being served to the few who attend the monthly Art Walk is a complete waste of resources. Also, the time wasted to get the grant was an irresponsible use of the city’s time and resources.

  11. Laguna Beach is a tough place to have a business, that is certain. If is isn’t the signage police, its the alcohol police. Meanwhile, more and more galleries go under and more and more businesses suffer. It’s a nightmare to get into the canyon or out of the canyon and instead of addressing this, they crack down on rouge art galleries. Seriously? Additionally the Thursday night ArtWalk really ought be changed to Saturday. Art on a weeknight is rough.

  12. Every night cars are broken into and robbed throughout our streets and Laguna police couldn’t could care less.
    Here’s a better idea. Let’s put a nail in the coffin of already struggling Laguna art galleries, cause artist aren’t part of Laguna culture or heritage or anything. This way we can triple the empty spaces for lease around town. Good job dummies.

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