Record Studios Homing In on Competitors

Chas Sanford, producer of hits for such recording stars as Stevie Nicks and TV’s Don Johnson, was looking forward to spending most of June working in his $1-million Woodland Hills home recording studio on an album by newcomer Billy Branigan.

But Sanford may be spending much of the coming weeks in meetings with attorneys and city building and zoning officials.

His goal: reversing a Los Angeles City Department of Building and Safety order to shut down the studio by Wednesday because the studio violates city zoning ordinances that restrict the commercial use of residential property.

If Sanford is not successful, the only sounds going on in his studio will be those of workmen dismantling all the elaborate equipment.

Sanford’s case could have far-reaching implications, not only for musicians and others with in-home recording studios, but for thousands of creative people in Los Angeles who work out of their homes--including, possibly, novelists, screenwriters, designers and architects. Unless they do the bulk of their work in a commercial area and use their homes for incidental “homework,” they are in technical violation of the city’s zoning code, according to Frank Eberhard, the city’s chief zoning administrator.

“Strictly speaking, other than a situation where they (home-based workers) are immediately adjoining a commercial zone, it’s not a permitted use,” Eberhard said. “But unless there’s a neighborhood complaint, there’s not a real heavy enforcement of those rulings.”

It wasn’t a neighborhood complaint, however, that brought city officials to Sanford’s door. It was a tip from professional recording studio owners, who contend that Sanford and other home studio operators are cutting into their business.

Last month, representatives from about 50 area recording studios--including such majors as the Record Plant, Cherokee and Conway--met to discuss common concerns.

The studio owners--who have formed a loose collective known as the Hollywood Assn. of Recording Professionals--invited a senior inspector from the Department of Building and Safety to their first meeting, where they aired their grievances about Sanford and other home-based producers. On May 9, the department gave Sanford 15 days to shut down.

In an interview at his home studio this week, Sanford said that the professional studio owners are seeking to monopolize the field:

“They think everyone should be forced to go to their studios to work. I don’t think I should be told where I have to go and be creative. It’s a misuse of the law when a rival studio 20 miles from my house--not my next door neighbor--can go to the zoning commission and evoke that law to put someone out of business.”

Sanford contended that the action could have a negative impact on the recording scene. Dozens of top recording artists, producers and engineers also own their own studios.

“If these guys force everyone not to be able to work out of their homes, there would only be $500,000 recording budgets,” he said. “None of the new bands would be able to legally do stuff out of their houses, which is where they all start.”

The studio owners counter that the home-based studio operators present unfair competition.

“We’re playing by the rules and they’re not,” said Allen Sides, owner of Ocean Way Recording, which operates studios in Hollywood and Sherman Oaks. “If they want to compete on the same basis, I don’t think any of us have any complaints.

“But if they’re going to operate and not pay 1.5% of their gross in business tax, not pay proper state Board of Equalization taxes, not pay proper overtime for their employees and have health insurance plans and have handicapped bathrooms and all the things that we have to do, it’s a different story.”

Buddy Brondo, owner of Conway Recorders in Hollywood, said that this battle isn’t one of “the big studios vs. the little guys. It’s the commercial studios vs. the illegal, for-hire home studios. It’s everybody that pays a lot of dues vs. the people who pay no dues. They’re up there undercharging everybody because they’re working out of their living rooms, and laughing about it.

“Most of the studio owners in Los Angeles are just studio owners,” he said. “If we fail in the studio, we’re finished. Most of the home studio guys are writers, producers, players or arrangers. They collect royalties and now they want to record the music in their house on top of it.”

Sides and Brondo said that they don’t object to the dozens of artists and producers--including Frank Zappa, Tom Petty and David Foster--who have home studios strictly for their own projects. They said that their objection is to the 12 to 20 producers and engineers--such as Sanford--who have rented out their home studios for profit. Sanford produced a four-color, six-page brochure inviting musicians to his Secret Sound L.A. studio and touting its “secluded setting” along with a heated pool and Jacuzzi.

The city’s zoning code, however, draws no distinction between home operators who rent out their facilities and others who don’t, according to Eberhard.

“The law basically says you can’t have a commercial use as a principal or main use of a residence,” he said. “If it’s your only office, that’s a second main use of the site, and if someone complained, the city would have to come out.”

A&M; Studios, the largest and most successful recording studio in California, has broken ranks with the other studio owners to side with the home-based producers. One reason: A&M; Records itself started 27 years ago in the West Hollywood garage of label-founder Herb Alpert. One of the songs that Alpert and partner Jerry Moss worked on in that garage was the Top 10 hit “The Lonely Bull,” which put the company on the map.

Shelley Yakus, one of four partners in A&M; Studios, cited other reasons for the company’s position.

“The problem I have with (the association) is that they’re acting like a lynch mob,” he said. “They actually started shouting en masse, raising their fists about Chas Sanford’s studio: ‘Close him down.’ It’s almost vigilante style.

“Their view is very narrow right now because they’re so angry. Their view is that if home studios didn’t exist, (recording artists would) have to come to one of our studios. But you have to deal with reality, and the reality is you can’t stop creativity in the way they’re trying to do it.”

Yakus also charged that some studio owners are using the home studio owners as a scapegoat.

“The reason that some of the studio owners in L.A. are not doing well has nothing to do with home studios,” he said. “It has to do with modernization and everything else.”

The dispute over home studios comes at a time when more people are working out of their homes.

Jack Nilles, a futurist and the president of Jala Associates, said: “This is just another aspect of the universal ability to produce at home what we used to have to go someplace else to produce.”

Nilles, who advises the city’s telecommuting task force, says zoning codes haven’t kept pace with this trend toward home labor.

“Our position is that the code should be amended to allow such things, provided it doesn’t disturb the character of the neighborhood.”

Zoning administrator Eberhard said that he expects the code to be liberalized within the next year to allow for greater business use of the home.

“The city has a lot of motivation to do it,” he said. “We need to cut down on traffic and things that promote air pollution, so I think it will happen fairly quickly.

“The basic standard that’s going to be used is what the neighborhood impact of the use is. I’m hoping to have the law changed so if someone can demonstrate that his operation doesn’t change the character or quality of the neighborhood, he would be allowed to maintain his commercial use there.”

If the codes are liberalized, Sanford may eventually be able to reopen his home studio. In the meantime, he has few options. The producer has applied for an extension, which would give him 90 days to complete his current projects. If the application is denied, he may have to relocate his studio--which he estimated would cost him $200,000.

“I’d be dead in the water for six to nine months because it will take that long to find a building and rebuild another control room,” he said. “I’m really between a rock and a hard place.”