knit wits

The Knitting Factory in Hollywood, a venue for edgy alt-rock and, occasionally, dance music, says the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety is threatening, essentially, to close it down after nearly 9 years of nightlife on the Hollywood Boulevard strip.

The club, an outpost of the original in New York, opened in 2000 when Hollywood Boulevard was still quite seedy and drugs could be scored just across the street. It, along with the Garden of Eden and perhaps a handful of other venues anchored the boulevard's nightlife renaissance. The Factory's owners claim that Building and Safety is threatening to revoke the venue's conditional use permit based on two things: 1) That it has hosted adult-video industry parties there (the club states that there have been three such events over the course of 8 years), and 2) that the venue does not adhere to the "upscale restaurant guidelines" laid out in its permit. Apparently, the city department is calling the venue a "nuisance."

"Suddenly," states Factory national operations vice president Morgan Margolis, "as the neighborhood has pushed drug dealers, out, the rents up, built condos and turned our complex from an entertainment center to a retail center, we are no longer wanted."

The Knitting Factory is encouraging patrons to attend and testify at a hearing regarding the permit that will take place at 10 a.m. Thursday, July 17, at 200 N. Spring St., room 1020, in downtown Los Angeles.

I've been to a few shows at the venue. It's not exactly upscale, but it's tidy, slightly hi-tech and definitely user friendly. The place is serious about good music with, I believe, two or three different rooms inside. Dance music events such as Lynn Hasty's laptop-DJ showcases in 2000 have been held there (see the flier, above). I even DJ'd there once in the early '00s, for free. I didn't think they entirely got dance music culture, but I didn't think the Knitting Factory folks were bad people, either.

I find it odd, given the stuff that goes on at other venues in Hollywood and downtown, that the department would chose this one to go after. There was a shooting at one re-branded downtown venue that had a history of trouble, according to the police. Some Hollywood clubs have been in hot water for letting underage starlets in. There have been fights and shootings outside Hollywood clubs of late. That's not very "upscale."

The Factory seems to be arguing that there's a conspiracy to get it off the boulevard - that it's done its job to open the area to nightlife and now it's time to make way for more upscale venues. I'm not sure if that's true. But if upscale means the kind of exclusive, hip-hop-and-pop-crazed, brat-magnet spots that now dominate the boulevard, I think a little bit of midscale is more than appropriate. We don't need one more velvet-rope "ultra-lounge." With all the paparazzi spots in Hollywood and all the pay-for-play rock clubs on the Sunset Strip, there are barely enough serious music venues as it is.