INSIDE INGLEWOOD-It is a sad day for Inglewood restaurants as the city celebrates its 31st Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Festival.
Dr. King strongly advocated for an economic base to sustain a civil rights movement.
Unfortunately, Inglewood’s mayor, James T. Butts, may have sold area restaurants and their owners up the river in order to get the venerable venue back in business.
The Forum is situated on the corner of Prairie and Manchester and is adjacent to a great number of restaurants which are along the west side of Prairie Avenue.
Those restaurants appear to have not been seen, however.
Lee Zeidman, the senior Vice-president and General Manager at Staples had this to state regarding Inglewood: “Would you rather have the choice of 20 restaurants directly across the street or eat at Sizzler?”
Staples is in downtown Los Angeles, an area which has benefited from a growth owing to public-private partnerships which have blossomed over the last decade.
The Sizzler to which Zeidman appears to refer is a restaurant on the corner of Manchester and Prairie—directly across from the newly built Forum sign on the intersection’s southeast corner.
The comment appeared in a January 15 story titled “Inside the LA Forum's Plan to Steal Concerts From Staples Center.” The story was published in the music and film industries’ leading weekly magazines, Billboard Magazine and the Hollywood Reporter.
In the same story it was stated that “[i]n fact, Live Nation [Entertainment] picked Staples over the Forum for Miley Cyrus' Feb. 22 show because of its proximity to hotels and amenities.”
Nearly all the restaurants along Prairie Avenue may have suffered owing to the Forum having a plethora of eateries inside the Forum.
According to the Huffington Post story titled “The Forum Food Offerings Include Cole's French Dip, Bludso's Coolhaus & More LA Favorites,” a number of Los Angeles restaurants have been invited to have space inside the Forum. Not one of Inglewood’s restaurants appeared to have been invited.
Adding salt to the wound is one long-established restaurant’s failed attempt to acquire a liquor license from the City of Inglewood.
M & M Soul Food, which sits beside the aforementioned Sizzler to which Staples GM Zeidman clearly appeared to refer, remains without its long-desired license despite its history in the City of Inglewood. An employee—who wished to not be identified because of her fear of retribution by Inglewood Mayor Butts—said that the restaurant did not have a liquor license despite a years-long campaign to acquire it.
“But we do have a corking fee of $15,” she added.
Butts would not respond to a request for comment after he spoke at the City of Inglewood-sponsored Martin Luther King, Jr., Celebration at Crozier Middle School on Saturday morning, January 18.
(Randall Fleming is a veteran journalist and magazine publisher. He has worked at and for the New York Post, the Brooklyn Spectator and the Los Feliz Ledger. He is currently editor-in-chief at the Morningside Park Chronicle, a monthly newspaper based in Inglewood, CA and on-line at www.MorningsideParkChronicle.com)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 12 Issue 6
Pub: Jan 21, 2014