Walk through the quirky shops and restaurants in Larchmont Village, just south of Hollywood and abutting Hancock Park, and it's hard not to think of it as a bourgeois Mayberry.
"It's like the hidden gem of Los Angeles," says Michael Mizrahi, the owner of Library, a boutique with antique-style decor that sells boyfriend jackets and high-end hipster couture. "And it's not that it necessarily needs to be a crazy-busy street, but the people here enjoy good stuff."
His father, Albert Mizrahi, might (fairly or unfairly) be the most hated person ever to open for business in the charming shopping village on Larchmont Boulevard — the "gem" that, like other L.A. neighborhoods, is seeing its unique shops replaced by chain stores and restaurants.
Albert's father, the late Joseph Mizrahi, started buying up space at Santa Monica's outdoor mall in 1970. He struck it rich in 1989, when a city bond measure subsidized a dramatic update. The new Third Street Promenade attracted names like Guess, and local shops were squeezed out.
But in L.A., Albert Mizrahi has made enemies. Larchmont and Hancock Park area residents and blogs have slammed him for spending $23 million on four Larchmont buildings, then driving out Larchmont Hardware, Floret Floral Design and Larchmont Village Estate Jewelers and Fine Arts and opening an allegedly illegal restaurant, Larchmont Bungalow.
The shuttering of Larchmont Hardware "was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back," says Patty Lombard, who blogs at LarchmontBuzz.com. After that, a venomous dispute erupted over Larchmont Bungalow, a trendy, busy restaurant with vegan specialties that opened in October 2009 without sufficient parking.
The city yanked his Certificate of Occupancy permit in December 2009, just three months later. The very next month, Mizrahi was charged by the Los Angeles City Attorney's office with three criminal counts for providing false information to obtain his permit, then ignoring shutdown orders.
Mizrahi countersued the city and lost. This month, he faces pre-trial in an unusual criminal case in L.A. Superior Court. Among other things, City Councilman Tom LaBonge's chief of land use, Renee Weitzer, has been subpoenaed by the defense.
City attorney Serena Christion declares: "Your Certificate of Occupancy was revoked, which says you shouldn't be operating, and you're still operating. ... At some point it has to end."
Mizrahi started buying Larchmont shops in 2007 with plans to remake them. But he botched relations with many locals by stratospherically raising rents on the treasured 82-year-old Larchmont Hardware, prompting it to close and earning him an ugly reputation. His wife, Renee, seemed to mock critics when she transformed the space into a boutique — named "Hardwear."
Renee Mizrahi insists that "Hardwear" was an innocent effort to utilize name recognition. Her more defiant husband declares, "The problem with that [closure] isn't really me — it's that the community needs to support these stores."
Larchmont Bungalow, just down the street, attracts the Sunday brunch set yet is vilified by many. Last year, LAPD responded when a Bungalow employee allegedly claimed he'd been shoved by a reporter from LarchmontLA.com who had tweeted: "Illegal restaurant Larchmont Bungalow trying to buy affections of farmers market vendors with free drinks. Won't work..."
It seems that nearly everything Albert Mizrahi does in this leafy community, whose residents are roughly equally divided among Latinos, Asians and whites, creates criticism of his trustworthiness.
Mizrahi tells L.A. Weekly that he tried to make a deal with Larchmont Hardware owner Russ Wilson to keep the beloved store open, but Wilson preferred to close. Wilson, who also owns West Hollywood's Koontz Hardware, flatly denies Mizrahi's claim.
However, it was the alleged whopper Mizrahi told city officials that landed him in criminal court.
"He used to say, 'There's nothing on this street I want to buy,' " recalls Norma Blunt, who owned the jewelry shop that Mizrahi turned into Larchmont Bungalow restaurant. "He'd come over to the shop and he'd stand on the front stoop of the shop and he would look up and down and go, 'This all could be so wonderful.' "
Mizrahi warned Blunt that when her jewelry store lease expired in a year, he planned to boost her rent to more than $25,000 a month. Blunt moved to Pasadena.
Mizrahi described Larchmont Bungalow as a "take-out" restaurant when he sought his city permit. He also signed a covenant with the Department of Building and Safety promising not to install seating.
To handle take-out customers — who leave more rapidly than dine-in patrons — the city typically would require seven parking spaces. But when Mizrahi opened Larchmont Bungalow, he unveiled a complete restaurant with sit-down dining — requiring far more parking. The city quickly revoked his Certificate of Occupancy.
At a tense neighborhood meeting, Mizrahi's then-partner, Ken Bernard, absurdly told residents that Mizrahi was not defying city law — the dining tables and chairs inside were actually for sale, he claimed, making Larchmont Bungalow a "furniture store" plus a take-out cafe.
"It's his whole, entire disregard for the neighborhood and for the city," says blogger Lombard, who lives in nearby Fremont Place. Mizrahi "sees this as a personal affront — 'You must not know how great I am. ... You don't want new things in the neighborhood. You don't understand what's going on.' And in all that huffing and puffing, he missed the underlying fact that [whether or not] you are the most interesting person in the universe doesn't change that you said one thing and you did another."
And to top it all off... fire-code violations that got the restaurant three years' probation... Bungalow's defense attorney didn't even try to put up a defense on that one, because it's indefensible to put people's lives at risk. Why can't business owners get that? You don't place people's lives at risk.
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Karma is already working its magic on the Mizrahi group... You can get away with doing evil in the short-term, but not in the long-run.
I like the Larchmont Bungalow just fine. Everybody should back off and let it be. The Q conditions are city laws at their worst... and should be repealed. Hooray for the Bungalow for finding loop holes and dragging court cases on for years to stay open. I'm a Hancock Park resident and I just can't understand why people are trying to run a successful business off the Boulevard. Do residents really want another Hamburger Hamlet Express or an empty Blockbuster? I don't. The community is not being served if the Larchmont Bungalow is closed by the city.
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Mizrahi is a complete slimeball, not to be trusted for a second. One must always assume the worst motivations are moving this guy. Drive him and his disgusting family out of town!
Meanwhile, the City's Planning Dept. is encouraging restaurants to open elsewhere in the city, such as Atwater Village, by waiving or severely reducing parking requirements. Go figure.
Longtime are resident, here, very grateful to you for this piece (not least of which reasons being that dots-finally-connected feeling for why Library, Hardwear, and Larchmont Bungalow always felt so very "off" in so much the same way). I'm agreed with the bulldozers that we need to accommodate change—I love having a Rite Aid and a Peets as much as the next guy, and I didn't spend enough at the old hardware store to keep it in business. But I spend less overall on the Boulevard now, mostly because (a), it's no fun, overrun with super-high-end ridiculousness and (b) it's crazy-crowded. I suppose the real lesson here is that rather than griping privately, I ought to get involved. It ain't a community without the participation of the community.
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Thanks for writing the article. My opinion in following the story since it opened: the Bungalow owners flagrantly and intentionally violated the local zoning ordinance hoping to circumvent the law. They have used legal stall tactics to stay open. I wish they never purchased real estate on Larchmont and would be so happy if they sold and left our neighborhood alone. To you outsiders making rude comments here: please mind the business of your own neighborhood and have respect for the opinions of the residents that live near Larchmont Blvd.
Screw 'em. I've got no sympathy for yuppie cum hipster douche bags whining about zoning on their precious "Larchmont" fake Mayberry.
The rest of the city is decaying around us like a relic from the Titanic exposed to the open air and these whiners are worried that the restaurant didn't have enough parking? Fuck 'em.
Thank you! @christykrumm Great piece, @loislane79! I had no idea all this was going on: Bitter Battle Over Larchmont http://t.co/3hoAhJpK
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I for one am very grateful for citizens like Patty Lombard who have the courage to stand up to Mizrahi. These developers are known for silencing local bloggers and critics with payoffs and legal intimidation. Glad to see the spine in this community.
It doesnt help matters that the Larchmont LA tweeter/blogger turned things physical. Hopefully someone is monitoring that escalating situation. If you pick up on the vitriol in his tweets and posts that was sadly inevitable, as it borders on obsession. This contingent of the neighborhood really needs to get over itself and need to control the area. The sad part is that that hardware store was bound to go out of business because people would rather go to Home Depot. Things change and the strip should change with it. And this piece leaves out the fact that theres' a HUGE empty former blockbuster building just sitting there on Larchmont...what part of the strip's so--called character did that contribute? That said, why doesnt Mizrahi just rent out a parking lot and offer valet to shut these people up? I wouldn't bother with valet as a neighborhood resident and occasional diner at Bungalow who can ALWAYS find parking, but at least that could put these arbitrary legal woes to rest. Again, the issue is one of control, not truly that "zoning compliance" is ruining the neighborhood. Bungalow has great food and character and should be considered a draw, not a problem.
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Oops, looks like according to Architectural Digest, Soleimani now wants Melrose to look like Mayfair in London. Has he ever ventured off Melrose to look at all those sweet little houses in the neighborhood? Could he have plans to banish them for a total Mayfair scheme. Back to Larchmont, apparently Mizrahi doesn't get a clear reading of the neighborhoods adjacent and what they prefer, after all they only live there.
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Without knowing anything about this issue up to this point, I'd say Mizrahi sounds like a world-class jerk. But it's the age-old battle - money-centric developers vs. communities that want to retain their small, folksy feel. And guess who always wins?
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Mizrahi must have not ever have traveled to infinite locations outside of LA where street context is a priority. I could easily curate a trip for him. Mizrahi's same trick is being played out in a more heavy handed way on Melrose between La Cienega and Doheny (primarily between La C and San Vicente) where property owner Ben Soleimani envisions Portobello Road or venues in Paris. Hmmm he must have been wearing funny glasses on those trips. His grand scheme is to unveil a Restoration Hardware corporate showroom. Destroying the charm of any area with insensitive development is simply blight with a steep price tag. Just ask the upset residents of WEHO West. Perhaps it's something in the "hardware" moniker. Nevertheless, dining at Bungalow was not an experience I would be itching to repeat...they have simply ripped off Joan's on Third which remains a fave.
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Why write "allegedly" illegal? If the reporter had done her homework, she would know that the court had already decided in December 2011 after a two-year battle that Bungalow has in fact been illegal since 2009. It's no longer an allegation. It's a fact. The case number is BS125092.
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This all sounds so familiar for people accustomed to LaBonge and his favorite piece of advice. "Do not ask for permission. Just do it, and if you get caught say you're sorry."
And Rene Weitzer for the defense!?! Ha! I'd pay to see that!
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