Food Festival’s Failure Is Loss for Three Charities Too

“Taste of L.A.,” a six-day food festival that ended Sunday night in Santa Monica, had been billed as an event that would provide 50% of its net profit to charity.

But the celebration of dining, which attracted some of the area’s most popular and high-priced restaurants as participants, reportedly lost as much as $50,000. As a result, no donations will be made to the intended beneficiaries--three local charities involved with helping the hungry and the homeless.

Furthermore, one local regulatory agency announced that it will ask that the event’s organizers, Martin J. Ellis Co. of Beverly Hills, provide a complete financial accounting because advertisements for the affair had discussed charitable fund-raising.

Taste of L.A. executive producer Martin J. Ellis said the event was not a charity benefit at any stage, but a for-profit venture that would simply make a donation if expenses were covered. However, it became clear to Ellis and his staff on the festival’s last day that they had fallen short of their goal.

The loss comes despite the fact that the event drew about 20,000 people to the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium’s parking lot over the last two weekends. Those in attendance were charged $3 for parking, $6 for admittance and then paid anywhere from $2 to $7 for samples of food from more than 30 restaurants participating each weekend.

Problems surrounding the affair, which had an estimated budget of $400,000, surfaced last week when Los Angeles Social Services Department officials ordered Ellis to discontinue Taste of L.A. promotions unless he received the necessary city permit for solicitation. In response, Ellis said his firm was not controlled by Los Angeles’ fund-raising regulations because Taste of L.A. was not a charity event, per se, and was not held in Los Angeles.

However, the department’s chief investigator, George Delianedis, said Monday that his agency does have jurisdiction over any charitable solicitation conducted in Los Angeles, an interpretation that applied to Taste of L.A. because it ran advertisements in local newspapers and commercials on area radio stations.

“When he said that half the profits would go to the homeless, then that took him out of the private sector completely. We will follow through and see how much he made and where it went,” Delianedis said.

A complete financial accounting of the event will be made available to city officials and others when final computations are made, Ellis said. The result will be available in 30 to 60 days, he said. The salaries paid Ellis and his staff will also be reported, but he declined to provide the figures Monday.

In the meantime, several restaurateurs who participated in the event said they were surprised and disappointed that none of the charities would benefit from their efforts. Participants were charged $1,500 per weekend to rent a booth and contributed 10% of their earnings to the organizers to cover expenses.

Expects to See Donations

“This has been three days of intense work for me. . . . I expect to see that some of this money will go to the right organizations,” said Piero Selvaggio, who owns Valentino in Santa Monica. “If they don’t make any money then don’t ask me to participate next year. No one wants to be a fool twice. Why should I kill myself working (if the charities don’t benefit)?”

Selvaggio added that he was originally led to believe that there would be a contribution to groups aiding the homeless regardless of the event’s success or failure.

Ellis said this was not the case and that all participants were informed that donations would be made only if Taste of L.A. was profitable.

The participants were not misinformed about a deficit, Ellis said, adding that it was quite evident to everybody from beginning to end that a deficit was a possibility. “It was explained to everyone,” he said.

Another Los Angeles restaurant executive, Russell Ruscigno of the New Otani Hotel, said his booth had lost $2,000 because of inaccurate estimates provided by event organizers regarding crowd size. He added that the tie-in with the charitable groups was “muddied” from the start.

Not All Upset

Not all participants were upset. Bruce Veniero, owner of Nucleus Nuance, said it takes time for food festivals to generate money and cited the popular Los Angeles Garlic Week benefit for the Red Cross, which struggled its first few years, as an example. Veniero said he may contact fellow restaurant owners from Taste of L.A. to see if he could get donations above what the participants have already contributed in order to help the designated recipients.

Officials of the three charitable groups that were in line to receive a share of Taste of L.A. profits expressed disappointment.

“I feel real badly that it didn’t turn out well,” said Rhonda Meister, director of St. Joseph Center in Santa Monica. “We are feeding over 100,000 people a year and with the costs of food today it is a big disappointment that no money is coming in from Taste of L.A. . . . I’m sure that the restaurant owners are upset.”

Collected $2,600

Sandy Mullins, the executive director of another intended recipient, Love Is Feeding Everyone food bank, or LIFE, said that because the group had a booth at the festival it was able to collect $2,600 in donations along with several hundred pounds of nonperishable food. However, she said it was a setback that nothing further would be coming from the event.

“I am disappointed. I need the money,” she said. “If I had some additional funds we could hire drivers for two vans we have and put them on the road delivering food to the needy.”

The third intended recipient of a part of Taste of L.A. profits was Ocean Park Community Center in Santa Monica.