N. Hollywood Street Closures Ruining Business, Merchants Say

Monica Lewinsky. Dragons. And clowns.

Costume shop owner James Albright has all kinds of masks in stock for Halloween. What he doesn’t have is enough customers to buy them.

Albright, who owns Haunted Studios III/Gilberts Costumes, says recent weekend closures along a stretch of Lankershim Boulevard in North Hollywood are spooking customers and sinking profits.

It’s a complaint heard up and down the boulevard, a portion of which is being closed for six consecutive weekends during a Metropolitan Transportation Authority project.

While acknowledging that the closures are inconvenient, MTA officials said they have tried to help the affected businesses by providing advertising and signs directing traffic.

The MTA is into its fourth weekend of repaving and restoring the boulevard, torn up during construction of the Red Line subway station in North Hollywood. The roadwork blocks access to motorists, and merchants have seen weekend business tumble.

At Albright’s shop, it’s the beginning of the Halloween season, a period he said accounts for more than half of his sales. So far, he has only grossed about $7,000. Normally, Albright said, he should have made at least $40,000 in the past three weeks.

The closure has also cost him two long-term clients in the film industry.

“It’s just killed me,” Albright said. “Business has never been all that good since I came to North Hollywood after the earthquake, but now it’s even worse.”

During the weekend closures, Lankershim is completely blocked between Chandler Boulevard and Killion Street. Other sections are open only to local traffic--from Magnolia to Chandler boulevards on the south, and between Burbank Boulevard and Killion Street on the north. The closures, every weekend from 8 p.m. Friday to 5:30 a.m. Monday, began Sept. 18 and are scheduled to end Oct. 25.

The MTA has about $250,000 to spend annually on North Hollywood businesses and has dedicated about $150,000 to soften the impact of the current weekend closures, said Mark Pattison, the MTA’s public affairs supervisor for North Hollywood.

That money pays for “business open” and detour signs as well as ads. Federal guidelines prohibit funds from being used for cash advances or to pay rent for businesses, Pattison said.

“We can’t do what a lot of these businesses want us to do,” Pattison said. “We can’t pay their rent, but we can help advertise and give them some signage.”

This weekend’s closure has Raven Playhouse owner Peter Strauss so worried that with a new play opening Saturday night, he had planned to stand on the corner of Magnolia and Lankershim with a flashlight, directing traffic to his theater.

“The way they went about it, it could have put us all out of business,” Strauss said. “They didn’t give us a chance to prepare, the MTA just suddenly told us the day before that they were going to start closing the street.”

MTA officials apologized for the short notice, saying a full week would have been preferable. Since final approvals were issued the Wednesday before construction began, notification was given Thursday, Pattison said.

“Maybe we could have given a pre-notice that the closure might happen,” Pattison said. “Basically, the first weekend was a fumble by public affairs.”

Since then, the MTA has responded to complaints by posting signs and helping with other ads when requested, he said.

That isn’t enough, if you ask the Eclectic Cafe, Vavooms clothing, Ragtime Cowboys clothing and costume and other merchants.

Eclectic Cafe owner Brian Sheehan said the road is open in front of his eatery, but workers block off street parking. He said his business is down 25% to 50% on weekends.

“When they screw up the traffic patterns, people don’t come to the area anyway,” said Joe Yanello, owner of Ragtime Cowboy. Yanello said his sales are down at least 50% since the closures started and unless it improves he could stand to lose between $5,000 and $10,000 each weekend.

Joining the outcry have been city Transportation Committee Chairman Richard Alarcon and committee member Joel Wachs. Both councilmen are demanding that the MTA come up with a reasonable compensation plan or the agency may not get any more city funds to complete the Red Line.

At a Sept. 29 meeting, both Alarcon and Wachs berated the MTA for unequal treatment of Lankershim businesses, compared with a $16.7-million package Hollywood merchants got during a similar project.

“The agency has recently come to understand it doesn’t have all the money in the world any longer,” MTA Chief Executive Officer Julian Burke said at the meeting. “I really think our financial situation is such that we cannot come up with anything like the kind of money spent on Hollywood Boulevard.”

After meeting with the city legislative analyst, Burke is expected to report back to the Transportation Committee on Wednesday.