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Life & Times Transcript

4/24/07

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

Is it coming to a neighborhood near you? High rents are putting the squeeze on quaint shopping villages.

Tom Kneafsey>> I think, as the rents go up, you get a better quality tenant even if they're mom and pop.

Diana Buckhantz>> It's very disheartening to me to look at our society and say that nothing matters except the dollar.

Val Zavala>> And then, from global warming to the five-second rule. Science is put to the test by our brightest young minds at the Los Angeles County Science Fair.

It's all straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times.

Announcer>> Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val Zavala>> We all love villages, those charming neighborhood shopping areas. They're such a relief from urban sprawl and impersonal malls. But now many of them from Larchmont Village to Leimert Park are in danger. What's causing the shops to close and can we do anything to stop it? Sam Louie has our story.

Sam Louie>> Los Angeles is a huge metropolis, but sprinkled around this urban giant are small, quaint villages like the Larchmont District, Melrose Avenue, Leimert Park, Robertson Boulevard and Abbot Kinney in Venice, all popular hot-spots with their own unique charm.

As different and diverse as these communities are, these days there's a theme unifying them: rising rents, rents that are putting many small businesses out of business and eroding the very character that make these places so attractive.

Robertino Giovannelli>> It's going to be very heartbreaking to leave this place. Definitely it will be very heartbreaking to have to tell all my employees that they have lost their job and now our relationship is going to stop right there.

Sam Louie>> Robertino Giovannelli is the chef and co-owner of La Luna Restaurant on Larchmont Boulevard. The popular Italian restaurant is in peril of closing down. Its lease is up and the landlord can get much more with a different tenant.

Robertino Giovannelli>> I think that there should be some kind of decency on the thoughts and on the actions of everybody to have the little people staying around.

Sam Louie>> The landlord charges just over three thousand dollars a month, but a new restaurant is set to move in and is willing to pay twice that. In addition, the new tenant also paid one hundred thousand dollars known as key money just for the privilege of renting.

Tom Kneafsey>> In the case of La Luna, there ended up to be a bidding war and the fellow that has the lease now, the new lease, offered them thirty thousand dollars in key money. Somebody else came in and offered a hundred thousand key money, so the owner then went back to the first guy and said, "Look, I've been offered a hundred thousand." He said, "I'll match them."

Sam Louie>> Tom Kneafsey is the President of the Larchmont Boulevard Business Improvement District.

Tom Kneafsey>> There's always kind of an adversarial relationship between, you know, the property owner and the tenant. Tenants are always saying that the rent is too high and the property owners are always saying that we're not getting enough.

Sam Louie>> He defends the landlords and the rising rents. Ultimately, Kneafsey believes the market should determine who stays and who goes.

Tom Kneafsey>> I think, as the rents go up, you get a better quality tenant even if they're mom and pop.

Sam Louie>> But Giovannelli disagrees. He says that his restaurant has been good for the community. He's been here sixteen years and feels a close kinship to his customers.

Robertino Giovannelli>> This is my life. This is where, you know, I've seen many of our customer kids grow up and now coming with their girlfriends and I've seen people get married and now coming with their children.

Sam Louie>> But walking out is what happened to Wilshire Fireplace, a story in the heart of trendy Melrose Avenue.

Richard Digeorgio>> There was a lot of negotiating leases and people selling their leases and leases running out and landlords getting bigger rents, so the writing was on the wall.

Sam Louie>> Owner Richard Digeorgio opened his store in 1990 and then watched as his rent soared.

Richard Digeorgio>> It went from fifty-seven hundred. I think in three years, it went to almost nine thousand, then three years later, it went to twelve thousand and something. So it was substantial increases every three years.

Sam Louie>> Unlike residents, some business owners can sell their lease to a new tenant before it runs out. So when Richard's lease only had a year left, he sold it. Richard then used the profits to set up shop in a bigger space in Beverly Hills.

Richard Digeorgio>> As far as people like us, yeah, it gets tougher and tougher to matriculate around the areas and still stay in a location that's convenient to your clientele, you know.

Chan Luu>> "Yeah, we do a lot embroidery work."

Sam Louie>> Some business owners decided to leave altogether. Chan Luu is a Los Angeles-based fashion designer. Her clothing line can be found in high-end shops like Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman-Marcus, but what you won't find is her store on Robertson Boulevard anymore.

Chan Luu>> My store is not big enough. It's only eleven hundred square feet. I can't raise more sales if I stay there and my rent is doubling or tripling, so it's not become that profitable for me, so there's no reason for me to stay. I can't compromise on that.

Sam Louie>> Chan also sold the last year of her lease to Coach. They were willing to pay a hefty three hundred fifty thousand dollars.

Chan Luu>> As much as Robertson did good for my company, I'm a business woman. I operate on a profit level only if it's not profitable. I'm not compromising. I can't compromise on that level.

Sam Louie>> While Chan Luu and other merchants have been able to capitalize on the rising property values, many others have to sell out, relocate or shut down completely.

Jay Luchs>> It's really hard for a landlord to keep a current tenant in when they're a business person and they're trying to get the highest amount of money they can in rent.

Sam Louie>> Jay Luchs is a commercial real estate broker. He's watched prime retail space in Los Angeles become hot commodities as corporate labels want in.

Jay Luchs>> And, yes, it does drive rents up because, if Mark Jacobs wants to be there, the next tenant wants to be there. And the next thing you know, in the last year, deals have been signed with Chloe, with Oscar de la Renta, Carolina Herrera, Templey of London, Mark Jacobs about a year and a half ago, new tenants like Sergio Rossi which is part of the Gucci Company. They're looking on the street.

Sam Louie>> He says that landlords and village retail areas don't have the flexibility that large retail landlords have.

Jay Luchs>> This is not one large mall where an owner can pick and choose and put an anchor at a low rent and then some smaller users of the high rent. It's individual owners who own different pieces on these eclectic streets.

Sam Louie>> But some neighbors are looking to fight back against what they see as greed.

Diana Buckhantz>> It's very disheartening to me to look at our society and say that nothing matters except the dollar. "Hi, Joe, there's a community meeting on April 11 to talk about Larchmont and what's happening here."

Sam Louie>> Diana Buckhantz is on the Committee to Save Larchmont Village. Her first campaign? Saving the La Luna Restaurant.

Diana Buckhantz>> We have a very strong connection to this restaurant. It's not just a place to eat to many of us. We feel like this is family to us.

Sam Louie>> Do you feel there's going to be that kind of loss?

Tom Kneafsey>> I don't think so. I don't think so. That was the discussion back in 1990. They said, if these trends continue, Larchmont is going to be a dead street. Well, it didn't happen. It got livelier.

Sam Louie>> The restaurant has filed a lawsuit against the landlord, so for the time being, La Luna will stay open as the lawsuit winds it's way through court. But other businesses have conceded defeat and are looking to close shop. So what's the future of neighborhood retail villages like these?

Will the quaint, small-town retailers survive rising rents or will corporate chains and high-end brands win out over mom and pop shops? One thing southern Californians have learned is that, when real estate market forces take hold, it's hard to stop. I'm Sam Louie for Life and Times.

Val Zavala>> We'd love to know your reaction to our story. You can post your comments. Just go to kcet.org and click on the Life and Times Blog.

Announcer>> Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, plus transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org, scroll down the page and click on "Life and Times".

Val Zavala>> It's enough to restore your faith in humanity. Tens of thousands of southern Californians will be volunteering at hundreds of different projects this weekend. It's called Big Sunday. The man who started it all is David Levinson. He's a film and television writer most of the time, but eight years ago, he got a few hundred people from his synagogue to volunteer for Mitzvah Day, mitzvah meaning good works.

The next year, other denominations joined in and, over the years, the number of volunteers has swollen from the hundreds into the tens of thousands. Then Levinson's event merged with the city of Los Angeles's Day of Service and this year as many as fifty thousand volunteers are expected to pitch in at hundreds of different sites throughout southern California.

David Levinson, did you ever think that you would end up being the head of the biggest volunteer effort in Los Angeles County? Tens of thousands of people volunteering?

David Levinson>> Well, first of all, we actually have the biggest citywide volunteer event in America.

Val Zavala>> In America?

David Levinson>> In America. But I can tell you that, in a billion years, I never expected to be doing this, to be standing here talking with you about this.

Val Zavala>> It sort of amazes me when I hear that, what, between thirty and fifty thousand people are expected to volunteer because in Los Angeles especially everyone's so busy. Trying to convince people to volunteer is, you know, an uphill battle all the way.

David Levinson>> It is, but something sort of takes over. It has sort of a snowball effect. I think most people want to feel like they're wanted and they're needed and it's empowering to people to be able to help somebody else no matter what station you're in. Whether you're very well-to-do and living on the west side or whether you're less well-to-do and you're living on Skid Row. We put everybody to work.

Val Zavala>> On Big Sunday's website, you can search by area of the city or activities that interest you like seniors or animals or you can just browse the list of hundreds of volunteer opportunities happening this Saturday and Sunday.

David Levinson>> We try to make it so that nobody can say no. We've tried to have things for every passion whether it's the environment or literacy or homelessness or AIDS or seniors or animals. We try to have things for whatever peoples' talents are. We have gardening projects and painting projects and cleaning projects. All you have to be is friendly. We're throwing parties, whether it's for seniors --

Val Zavala>> -- you can go throw a party?

David Levinson>> You can throw a party. And for people who aren't even friendly, I usually know who they are, I say, "All right, we're having a blood drive. Give blood." So there's something for everybody. We get like truckloads of clothes and books and toiletries and food, so everybody can find some way that they can participate.

Val Zavala>> So you've written for movies and television, but part of your incentive for getting into this was, what, because movies and television were too frustrating and nothing was really happening?

David Levinson>> Well, I was caught in something they call in the movie business "development hell" where I'd write movies and I'd sell the movies and it was all very nice and exciting. We'd talk about it, but they wouldn't actually make the movies. At first, this is like, oh, very exciting. You get a check, but nothing happens. After a while, it gets a little frustrating.

So I just wanted to see and do something tangible. So I thought, all right, if I go and furnish an apartment for a homeless person, I don't have to ask myself why I'm doing it. It's not going to take years and years for it to happen. I can go in there, I can carry the sofa in with a friend and we can put the bed in and somebody else can put the sheets and blankets on the bed and you don't have to ask yourself why you did it.

At the end of the day, a homeless person who doesn't have a house could move in. That's where I came from and I'm totally honest about it. For many people, it's a good way as a reality check about what's important and what's not important and to feel like, as I said before, for everybody that it's empowering and it can make you feel you're doing something worthwhile.

Val Zavala>> Now I notice this thing has gotten so successful. You've got a bunch of corporate sponsors. But some people say, "Uh-oh. That's the beginning of the end. Corporate sponsors, commercialism. It's going to ruin it."

David Levinson>> No. First of all, our corporate sponsors have been great. We couldn't do it without our corporate sponsors. It's been very important to me from the beginning that Big Sunday is free for everybody. There's no cost to participate. Everybody gets a free t-shirt. There's a pizza party at the end of the event that's free for everybody and it's all underwritten.

See, my thing is, if you're well-to-do, you're hit up all the time anyway. If you're poor, you're poor, so you don't have extra money. Even giving away t-shirts, if we were to charge a couple of bucks, for a family of four in Santa Monica, twenty bucks is not a big deal. For a family of four from another part of town, that could be a lot. So it's a big equalizer.

We need the corporate sponsors to underwrite it. Disney, Toyota, Mercury Insurance, Sempra Energy, Hilton Hotels, Paramount. These guys have been so generous and not just with their money. They're out there with their employees too at sites all over town. They're not just giving us money, but they're giving us books, they're giving us clothes to give away. They give us great energy and demanding actually very little in return. They get it, they totally understand what our mission is and we couldn't do it without them.

Val Zavala>> Now all this sounds great, but it is just one weekend out of the year, one day out of the year. What good does that do?

David Levinson>> For some people, this might be the first day in their life they've ever volunteered. Some people volunteer all the time, but for some people, it's a new thing. We get things accomplished that weekend, whether it's putting in sprinkler systems or painting buildings or feeding people.

For some people, it's a catalyst for involvement that goes on throughout the year. It's always great to me when I go to plan Big Sunday and somebody says to me, "You know, last year I bowled with those kids from Best Buddies and now I'm a mentor to one of those kids" or "I went back to that school at Christmas and we brought school supplies."

You can't believe how many stories there are like that. Actually, between Thanksgiving and New Year's, we did another sixty projects last year with a Big Sunday cyberspace community. Yeah, for some people, they realize that they can do much more than they might have thought.

Val Zavala>> So, planting seeds.

David Levinson>> Planting seeds, literally and figuratively. Yeah, that's what we're trying to do. The thing about Big Sunday is that it should be fun. I mean, when you're volunteering, you should have a good time. Some people think you're not supposed to, but I don't get it. If you don't have a good time, you're not going to volunteer again, at least not for me. So our idea is that everybody should have fun doing it.

It was bringing a lot of people from the school where my kids go out in the Valley, a ton of people from Figueroa Street School, and everybody was down there together and it was fun to be there. I was so tired at the end. I kicked back and had some pizza and listened to the music and just talked to the people. It was a blast.

Val Zavala>> David Levinson, founder and chairman of Big Sunday, thank you for all your work. We really appreciate it. Good luck.

David Levinson>> Thank you very much for having me.

Val Zavala>> Big Sunday has gotten so big that it's now on Saturday and Sunday. You can go to their website at bigsunday.org for all the volunteer opportunities.

Announcer>> To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address:

Life and Times
4401 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, California 90027

You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org.

Val Zavala>> This is butterfly season and there's no better place to see them than here at the Butterfly Pavilion at the Natural History Museum where they've gathered together more than two dozen species of gorgeous butterflies from across America, and no one knows more about them than Brent, the bug guy, Karner.

Brent Karner>> I guess because they call me Brent, the bug guy, you pretty much get the idea that I like all bugs. Butterflies are great, though, because in our society people don't tend to like the insects and their close relatives very much. But butterflies are exempt from those hateful feelings we have about a lot of the other insects and their close relatives like spiders and scorpions.

I can actually use butterflies to attract people not just to get them to see butterflies, but then to talk to them about other intriguing issues that relate to other insects. Kids, I think, love butterflies almost more than anybody. This is a real family oriented exhibit. The kids love just seeing the colors flying around. They love to chase them a bit.

Adults like it too just because it's sort of a nice peaceful place they can just come in. The adults are usually the ones sitting on the benches like me, and the kids are the ones running around on the paths looking at all the different butterflies that they can find. Kids also like it because it's got a bit of a scavenger hunt appeal to it.

[Film Clip]

Brent Karner>> I think this is an even bigger experience than most people would expect. Every time you come, it's a different experience. You'll see different plants, you'll see different butterflies and you'll sort of see how the great circle of life actually works and, if a little bit of that follows them out of here and gets them to think about what they might need to do at their own home or in their own environment to make it a happy place for butterflies and other animals, then we're really doing our part.

Val Zavala>> We're always reading about the problems in our schools, but now there's an antidote to all that bad news. Just make one visit to the Los Angeles County Science Fair and get ready to be impressed, charmed and entertained, as Cris Franco was.

Cris Franco>> What's got a big pencil and a stopwatch and a tube and a ruler and a plate?

>> A catalyst reaction rays meter.

Cris Franco>> But, of course, you knew that. Well, you would have if you'd been at today's Los Angeles County Science Fair where the Southland's best middle and high school scientific minds bring their brightest ideas to life. This yearly science palooza draws over a thousand local public and private school students in a competition for awards and scholarships in categories ranging from biology to zoology. I had the pleasure of meeting just a few of these dynamic participants whose entries pose some rather important questions.

Swati Yanamadala>> Well, what I was doing was looking at the bacterial levels in aquatic ecosystems and seeing if that affects our coastal beach water quality. What I found was that humans contribute a lot to the fecal contamination going into our beaches. So basically, when we use the restroom, our feces are going into the water and then going into our beaches and we're swimming in it.

Cris Franco>> Contamination's up. Now what school do you go to?

Alex Nescovic>> I go to John Muir Middle School in Burbank.

Cris Franco>> Oh, I'm from the Valley too. Valley boys, for sure, for sure. Okay, for sure, tell me about your experiment here.

Alex Nescovic>> Well, I tested the five-second rule.

Cris Franco>> Oh, like five seconds if you drop a potato chip and you go, five-second rule, and then you pick it up and then it's not dirty?

Alex Nescovic>> Yes.

Cris Franco>> Every bachelor knows that. You're a bachelor, right?

Alex Nescovic>> Yes, of course.

Cris Franco>> Alex arrived at his conclusion by checking for contamination using a wand and a Petrie dish.

Alex Nescovic>> This is a Petrie dish.

Cris Franco>> If it falls on the floor, it has acquired enough of the bacteria. It doesn't matter how long it's there. One second or five seconds --

Alex Nescovic>> -- you might get sick, exactly.

Cris Franco>> Speaking of getting sick --

Erica Kepski>> Which antacid will neutralize gastric acid the best?

[Film Clip]

Cris Franco>> Erica's thorough explanation kind of gave me a tummy ache.

[Film Clip]

Cris Franco>> How do people get gastric acid? Because I have that problem. I have a lot of stomach acid.

Erica Kepski>> Get some Milk of Magnesia.

Cris Franco>> Where do you go to school?

Krishna Choudhary>> Nobel Middle School in Northridge.

Cris Franco>> Another Valley boy.

Krishna Choudhary>> How I got the atmosphere effective turbulence is I used these stoves to create different speeds of air. Then I used a laser so that the laser would quiver through like a graph paper and I would measure how much it would quiver.

Cris Franco>> Now where did you get a laser? Not every kid has a laser at home. Did you just happen to have one at home?

Krishna Choudhary>> Yeah, I just happened to have one at home.

Cris Franco>> Can you get our suits there? Very good, right? We look like an ad at Sears. Tell me a little bit about your hovercraft engineering display.

Robert Hollar>> Well, the purpose of my project was to build a hovercraft that could lift twenty-five pounds. Some of the materials we used were these PVC plastic sheets here for the frame of the hovercraft. We used a model aircraft engine. The distance in centimeters between the two liquids times the density of the liquid divided by the weight that you want it to carry equals the diameter in centimeters.

Cris Franco>> This last part flew over my head like a hovercraft. Joshua Anderson was a little easier to follow. Tell me about your experiment which asks which valley has clean water.

Joshua Anderson>> I was testing to see which valley had cleaner water, either the Conejo Valley or the San Fernando Valley. The water temperature is fourteen degrees Celsius and I tested the nitrate level which was three ppm which means parts per million, the dissolved oxygen level which was three ppm, parts per million, and I did that for all the streams in both valleys.

Cris Franco>> And the winner is?

Joshua Anderson>> The San Fernando Valley had cleaner water.

Cris Franco>> Valley boys.

Lyndsey Aponik>> Well, I did "Global Warming: Myth or Reality?" I wanted to find out if global warming was true or false.

Cris Franco>> And the answer is?

Lyndsey Aponik>> True.

Cris Franco>> True.

Lyndsey Aponik>> And what I did is, I got two jars. One I filled with the room air and the other I filled with carbon dioxide. I got two heat lamps and I turned them on and I found that the jar with the carbon dioxide treated air was hotter.

Alexandra De La Torre>> Eisenia Foetida was the earthworm that was used. What I did was, I put them in separate containers and then I put soil over them and I gave them food scraps. There was inorganic fertilizers such was slow release and instant release and there was an organic fertilizer used.

Cris Franco>> And is this what the worms look like?

Alexandra De La Torre>> This isn't really what the worms looked like.

[Film Clip]

Alexandra De La Torre>> Inorganic fertilizer should not be used. Organic fertilizer should be used instead.

Cris Franco>> Because what happens?

Alexandra De La Torre>> Because then the earthworms die.

Cris Franco>> And that's bad because?

Alexandra De La Torre>> Because the long-term value of the soil isn't good anymore. The earthworms maintain it.

Cris Franco>> These future Einsteins and Edisons are out to change their world and often how they found their inspiration is as unique as their discoveries themselves.

Calvin Huang>> The title of my experiment is "Will You Be The Next Millionaire?"

Cris Franco>> And how did you come up with that idea?

Calvin Huang>> I came up with this idea because every once in a while, I see my parents playing the lottery and I wondered if I could help them out because they're usually not winning much money. My conclusion is that the lottery numbers are not predictable, so you're just really wasting your money.

Cris Franco>> What gave you the idea?

Robert Hollar>> Just thinking about all the stuff my dad builds like oil pipes under water, all the crazy stuff he makes around the house to make cleaning and stuff easier. Well, I want to build something crazy too. I mean, every kid wants to be like his dad, so I just decided to build the hovercraft.

Lyndsey Aponik>> I was actually watching an Oprah show with my mom and Leonardo DiCaprio was on. He was talking about global warming and I thought that was really interesting, so I decided to do more research about it.

Cris Franco>> He saved Kate Winslet in "Titanic". Now he's going to save our planet. Meeting these young scientists made me feel optimistic about our world's future and theirs.

Alex Nescovic>> I want to go to MIT and then work at NASA or JPL.

Cris Franco>> Those are good places. I think they have good insurance plans, right?

Alex Nescovic>> I have no clue about the insurance.

Cris Franco>> Tell me, what do you think when people say that young people that are into science are nerds?

Krishna Choudhary>> Well, don't call them nerds because, when you grow up, you're going to end up working for them and they're going to be your boss.

Robert Hollar>> It has huge benefits in life. It can get you a very well high-paying job. It can get you into good schools and it can just do a lot for you. So I find it sad that a lot of today's young people don't appreciate science and math as much as they should.

Cris Franco>> These young Americans have a true passion for science, math and engineering, and there's a practical reason to encourage them all to understand the stars above us and the molecules around us because discovery leads to innovation, innovation leads to production, which is just another word for jobs. Any everybody understands what that is. Even I do. Lyndsey, what's going to happen to the polar bear if people don't pay attention to your experiment?

Lyndsey Aponik>> The polar bears are going to lose their ice and die.

Cris Franco>> The polar bears are going to die. You have to stop them.

Lyndsey Aponik>> Okay (laughter).

Val Zavala>> The Science Fair is happening later this week at the Los Angeles Convention Center. It's open to the public on Friday and Saturday. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. We'll see you next time.

Announcer>> Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Sponsored in part by:


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