A Warm Welcome for Latin Grammys

Despite the possibility of demonstrations, Inglewood officials Tuesday welcomed a last-minute decision to move the Latin Grammy Awards from Miami to the Forum on Sept. 11.

“This is not the first major entertainment event that has been handled by the city of Inglewood, and it won’t be the last,” Mayor Roosevelt Dorn said.

C. Michael Green, president and chief executive of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences and the Latin Recording Academy, on Monday announced that Grammy officials were pulling out of Florida because the prospect of demonstrations by anti-Communist activists made it impossible to guarantee the safety of artists and guests, especially from Cuba.

The mayor couldn’t hide his excitement about capturing an event that was expected to funnel $35 million into Miami’s economy. “This will be a great boon for the city, our entire community,” he said.

Dorn said Inglewood has set up a task force to prepare for the awards, addressing everything from traffic congestion to potential protests by anti-Communist Cuban exiles whose planned demonstrations in Miami prompted the organizers to switch cities.

Inglewood police spokesman Lt. Alex Perez said city officials are not anticipating the kind of demonstrations that might be expected in Miami. The city has 200 uniformed officers, but its numbers have the potential to increase through its mutual aid agreements with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and law enforcement agencies in other South Bay cities.

“Disruptions are not a major consideration on the scale that people were talking about in Miami,” Perez said. “It is different here.”

Still, Miami Cuban American groups who were angered by the decision to move the awards to the Los Angeles area are organizing exile community members here.

“We are planning to start organizing a demonstration in Los Angeles,” said Irma Garcia of the Miami-based Bloc of Political Prisoners. “We have spoken to different groups in Los Angeles, and we have started to organize.”

Garcia said protesters plan to cooperate with authorities.

“We want a peaceful demonstration, a quiet demonstration so that we can show the world how sad we are that our country has been living under a tyrant for 42 years,” Garcia said.

It will be the second year in a row that the Latin Grammy awards have been held in Los Angeles. Last year’s inaugural ceremony was held at Staples Center.

Though Inglewood city leaders took the move in stride, it rocked the Latin music industry as label executives on both coasts scrambled to change travel plans for artists and guests who, until Monday, had planned to converge on Miami.

The last-minute logistics are formidable since the Latin Grammys draw performers from an enormous region, ranging from Madrid to Buenos Aires.

But some saw a silver lining.

“For the rock community, we’re rejoicing,” said Josh Norek, a New York publicist for Mexico City-based performer Julieta Venegas. “No one cares about rock en espanol in Miami, but Los Angeles is ground zero for Latin alternative music. So everyone’s kind of high-fiving each other.”

Times staff writer Jocelyn Y. Stewart contributed to this story.