The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music boasts nearly 500 students. Each spring quarter, one of the longest-running annual collegiate music contests, Spring Sing, takes over Pauley Pavilion with dozens of acts.
Yet, beyond concerts at the Fowler Museum and Schoenberg Hall, the student music scene in Westwood is all but nonexistent. With no venues for live music in Westwood Village, past student bands like The Ten Thousand and Free Food have been driven to The Treehouse and the Co-Op on Landfair Avenue, drawing crowds of students before being shut down by UCPD for noise complaints.
Without a viable venue for live music in Westwood, student musicians have lost out on spaces to play and businesses in the Village have been unable to reap the entertainment and economic benefits of live music.
In order to create an economic and cultural boon for what is often described as a dying neighborhood, the Westwood Neighborhood Council, the Westwood Community Council and the Westwood Village Improvement Association must work together to create an accepting environment for live music, both legally and economically.
The Los Angeles Police Department requires businesses featuring live music – including karaoke – to obtain a cafe entertainment permit. According to the City of Los Angeles Office of Finance, the permit costs $485 to acquire and $148 annually to maintain, making it one of the most costly granted by the LAPD. The most expensive permit, for businesses selling firearms, costs $744.
The cafe entertainment permit presents just one layer of red tape restaurants and bars must cut through. The Westwood Village Specific Plan, a document written by the City of Los Angeles in 1989, requires businesses to have a conditional use permit in order to offer live entertainment. The hassle to procure multiple permits with additional fees has deterred bars and restaurants in Westwood Village from hosting live music.
Because of that, student bands must search outside Westwood for practical venues, exporting their talent to areas like West L.A. and Silver Lake. The Village loses out on the student talent that is forced to seek other neighborhoods, while local businesses miss the opportunity to draw music audiences.
Decades ago, Westwood had its own four-story disco club, Dillons, along with other venues for live music. In recent years, UCLA alumnus Russell Angelico has expressed plans to renovate an empty theater on Lindbrook Drive into a student-run music venue.
All that seems to be holding back the modern music scene at UCLA is permit costs surrounded by red-tape bureaucracy. Music venues that have existed in Westwood in the past were shut down because of legal violations of the permits or an absence of them altogether.
The Westwood Neighborhood Council should recognize the importance of live music in Westwood by petitioning the City of Los Angeles to amend the Westwood Village Specific Plan to make it more feasible to open a live music venue, let alone host live music in a restaurant or bar. If Westwood can’t rid itself of every permit burden, it can at least reduce the number of hoops businesses have to jump through to provide a venue for student musicians to showcase their talents.
Russell here. Thanks editorial board for the mention.