IIt looks like the Coffee Gallery will celebrate the return of its open mic nights, where comedians, musicians, storytellers, poets, and other performers will have a place to be and an appreciative audience to play to.
Coffeehouse owner Julie Sandoval said that a glut of letters protesting the county's shutdown of the front stage two weeks ago spurred Supervisor Michael Antonovich to have county planning look over the licensing of the shop. Open mic nights were an almost-nightly feature of the coffeehouse at 2029 N. Lake, which garnered an army of regulars who looked forward to watching and performing in the intimate space. At the time, county officials said that the coffeehouse was not licensed for entertainment, unlike the Coffee Gallery Backstage, a separate business in the same building that featured almost-nightly musical performers. Continuing open mic nights would put the entire building and both businesses under the threat of shutting down, it was said at the time.
Sandoval said that county planners looked over the original paperwork, and determined that the coffeehouse could be granted an entertainment license without reconsideration of the building's conditional use permit, which would have cost as much as $12,000 according to some estimates.
Sandoval said that an entertainment license for the coffeehouse would cost $2,267, and two fundraisers will be held in April to raise those funds. The first would be a "roast" of Sandoval by the comedians who perform in the coffehouse, scheduled for April 16.
The second would be "music spectacular," Sandoval said, to be held in the auditorium of the Altadena Community Church, which is donating the space on April 28. Sandoval said that, by April 29, she should have the money to get the license and resume the open mics.
"I'm very optimistic that it will all go OK," Sandoval said. "We're in progress."
UPDATE 3/29: Open mike MC Duane Thorin shares some thoughts, after the jump:
… we have been given a provisional "go ahead" to continue our community stage, with the assurance that somehow things will be worked out, and that the county does not really want to shut us down.
The touching and passionate letters from our patrons and the readers of the Altadena Blog have really reinforced the fact that what Julie and I have been doing in providing a meeting place of song and dreams and mutual interchange for the artistic folks who live here has really had an enlivening effect on many lives, and on the general quality of life for this little town. Which is what Julie has wanted the Coffee House to be all along.
I can't give you anything definitive I am afraid, about final decisions and dispositions of things: there is still a percentage of danger that things may take a bad turn with licensing and such, but the Supervisor's office is behind us, and the community good will, and we shall see how it all turns out with the Planning and Licensing people. Heck, playing music for each other in this town can only be so dangerous and harmful and subject to only so much regulation and bureaucratic oversight, when you consider the the things that go on in this world that really are worth regulating, that aren't at all. Go see "Inside Job," about Wall Street's ongoing theft of America's wealth, or have a look at the nuclear industry, and we can see that the real threats to public safety and way of life do not emanate from the strings of guitars or the lovely singing voices of the children of a community. (sorry bout the mini editorial, one can only be so clinical about such things).
Thanks to you and the people who have had the good citizenship to write letters of support, for helping the nice folks at the County to get real on this subject, and lend a helping hand.
