More Breeze on the Warner Grand

Breeze reporter Paul Clinton has written an article about the Warner Grand asking titled "Could theater get a bad rap if it restricts acts?" Momentarily forgiving Paul for finding a way to work the word "rap" into his article's title, I can't seem to imagine how exercising any kind of programming control over the theatre would give it a "bad rap".

To build upon my earlier questioning of the City's operation of the Warner Grand - don't we all expect the Warner to exercise some kind of choice and control over who it books? I have rooms at Angels Gate that are booked to the public, and I don't book them in ways that run counter to our mission, might damage the buildings or would be unsafe - that's my job! I work inside a City park and I have to live by the same rules that the city does when it comes to discrimination, and we've never had a booking that required police intervention and we've never been accused of discrimination, either

Even if the City is unwilling to grasp what so badly needs to be done to transform the Warner into the gem that we all know that it should be, they can at least exercise some oversight in the booking of their venue. It's not discriminatory to be reasonably practical in your booking practices. The Warner Grand has historic, expensive, newly restored seats - everywhere. That means no more dancing. Believe me, I would have started putting on punk and noise music shows at the Warner for years, if it weren't for the fact that it's an absolutely bad idea to have programming there where the crowd will be dancing or standing up. It was totally irresponsible for the Warner to allow Bone Thugz-N-Harmony to book the theatre, not because they are a rap act, with threatening lyrics, but because there's no sensible way to manage the audience - it's a situation that invites damage to the theatre's infrastructure.

From the article (I'm taking these out of order - forgive me):

Another San Pedro promoter chastised Fan Bam for failing to provide enough security at the show.

"I don't think you can blame the venue," said Leo Rossi, who has booked shows at the downtown theater for 20 years. "It's all about security. It's not the city's responsibility. It's the promoter's."

Yes, you can blame the venue. It's the venue's job to ensure that the people it books to are responsible. The venue can and should set a very high bar in this case, given both the potential size of crowds that the theatre can accommodate and the historic nature of the building and its contents. The Warner Grand is difficult from a security standpoint. It has numerous areas, like the downstairs bathrooms and the massive balcony that are difficult to secure, without having personnel constantly on guard in them. The Warner is within it's rights to demand that any of it's renters provide security as it sees fit.

Limiting content could create constitutional headaches for the city, says an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.

"A theater that's owned by the city is a designated public forum," said Peter Bibring, an attorney with the group. "The law is clear that citizens cannot bar particular kinds of speakers from a public forum because of the content of their speech."

Yes, that is correct - but the city doesn't have to rent its facilities to events that are likely to damage the theatre. If the theatre is going to operate as a rental house, then yes, they cannot discriminate based upon the content of the material that's going to be presented. That's fine. But the City sure as hell can refuse to book to events that are mechanically inappropriate for the building, in this particular case, a packed house of people dancing, standing on seats, and most likely in an environment with little to no security who's job is to protect the house and the audience.

The theatre is a historic building that is essentially designed to do one thing - show movies or light programming to a seated audience. The theatre simply doesn't have the infrastructure to book for groups where the audience is going to be dancing or otherwise out of their seats.

A spokeswoman for Councilwoman Janice Hahn said the councilwoman doesn't involve herself in programming decisions at the theater because she doesn't want to micromanage it.

No one has asked her to micromanage the theatre, and I don't think it's appropriate for her to muddle in the programming. What Janice could do, however, is find a way to put a budget in place so that the theatre can be programmed in the first place. There's already some great programming that can be built upon - Susan Wilcox's Foreign Films series and the Golden State Pops Orchestra are doing a great job, but we can't expect volunteers and small groups to program one of the biggest movie houses in the City of Los Angeles. Those programs should form the nucleus from which a properly budgeted Warner Grand Theatre is actively programmed by a central authority with an appropriate budget. This is a City of Los Angeles problem and it needs to become a priority for our councilwoman, and probably the mayor, to restore the historic Warner Grand to real operational status.