Westwood Troubles

Who’s minding the store in Westwood Village?

The Thursday Farmer’s Market has been forced by the Westwood Village Business Improvement District to indiscriminately ban certain merchants from selling their wares because one existing merchant fears competition and threatened a lawsuit. The real losers are once again the community.

And Ira Smedra, touted by Councilman Michael Feuer and a cadre of well-paid spin meisters as the savior of Westwood Village, keeps his property in an abandoned and derelict state. Now it turns out that his one prime tenant is an unlicensed, illegal porno distribution business.

This business, sandwiched between Mr. Smedra’s Village Center Westwood project office and a religious bookstore, and within 500 feet of a residential zone, should sound a clear warning about Mr. Smedra’s lack of concern for the community, his unusual philosophy of “mixed use” and the questionable quality of his property management.

This is only reinforced by Mr. Smedra’s professed ignorance and flippant response when asked about his controversial tenant: “Obviously, if (the homeowner’s group) knew what it sells, they must be customers,” as quoted in the L.A. Business Journal of Feb. 19. All of this provides yet another justification for the community’s overwhelming opposition to Mr. Smedra’s illegal Village Center Westwood movie mall.

PRUDENCE MACGOWAN FAXON

Westwood