Saturday night (a week ago) we got visited by the Alcholic Beverage Action Team of the Oakland Police Dept. They have a history of shutting down venues. I think that is one of their main duties. They weren’t even there to visit us. They were looking into the restaurant/bar next door, and we just happened to be next door and having a show, and they entered the building while the bands were finishing loading out. They saw empty beer bottles and our donation jar and cooler.

It took until Tuesday to figure out how serious it was. We’ve had cops come by before, but none have threatened to shut us down before. This dude was doing that, and bandying about the phrase “public nuisance.” So we’re seriously trying to get legal with the city and not get busted.

Right now the situation is:

No alcohol at 21 Grand. No live music shows at 21 Grand. I got the Fire inspector to agree to let us have shows Thursday, Saturday, and Tuesday. He would only allow 49 people. But then no shows. Not until we get a building inspection and a zoning clearance (which involves getting a conditional use permit that costs $1917 – we’ve raised enough money to pay for that).

That is the decree of the Fire Inspector. OPD that issues special events permits are cool with us (so far) and the City Administrator that issues cabaret permits is cool with us. They’re willing to give us regular special events permits for shows as long as we diligently work to get our cabaret permit. We actually would only need to make a few minor corrections to meet fire code for a special event permit for 100 people, but because we’ve done the building out that we’ve done without permits – the Fire Inspector doesn’t want to sign off on something that’s someone else’s department – so now it’s 21 Grand vs. the Building department.

We’re hoping to get some one in the building department to come down and say, this place might not be up to code for a cabaret permit, but it’s okay for a special event. We don’t know if we can do this. We don’t know how soon. I think the guy that can do this is on vacation, and the other guy doesn’t even know where the guy on vacation keeps the informational forms about it or if they’re out of forms.

Basically, every show after Tuesday for the month of December is being cancelled or moved to another venue. I might have to do this for January. I should know more next week.

Even if we get the temporary stay, and can resume doing shows with special events permits, we will eventually need to get the place legal for a cabaret permit, and that might majorly suck in terms of time and expense and possible modifications. We don’t know.

We want to present shows other places while we can’t do them at 21 Grand, and are willing to staff, bring our equipment, clean up, and do the patented 21 Grand cat-herding and door-admission diligence. We are up for trying to get special events permits through using our non-profit status at other places. We also want to, uh, organize benefit shows for ourselves to help us raise the money to pay for all this. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Any further questions?

sl

Anonymous

Jacqueline Gordon

Derek Carner

Sarah Filley

Pete Glover

Daniel Healey

Cheryl Leonard

Laura Paulini

Kathleen Quillian

Debra Stuckgold

Patricia Wakida

What happens after that? We’re not sure yet. They want us to show progress towards bringing the building up to code. Some of these things will be expensive. One of these things, that they just determined we would need to do is install fire sprinklers. We will need to do some upgrading of the building for seismic (earthquake) purposes. This might be expensive, this might be not-too-expensive.

However, we cannot afford to pay for all of this ourselves. We would need the building owner to pay for some of it. The building owner could say no. He is not required to do this work. These upgrades would not be necessary if we were operating an auto garage. If the building owner says no to paying for some of the upgrades, then 21 Grand would either a)move again or b)close.

Obviously this is a major decision, and we (Sarah and Darren and our board of directors) don’t take it lightly. We want to know what people think. We want your feedback. You can email me (Sarah) at 21grand at 21grand dot org.

We may have a more formal poll or survey to send out, if that makes it easier to respond/organize your thoughts.

Thanks for reading.

Fred Nocella
Andrew Phares
Diane Wren
Ben Reisman
Jeanne Lydon
Eliot Daughtry
John Casey, represented by Swarm Gallery
Damon Smith – contents of “boîte”
Kerri Lee Johnson

For your convenience, and ours, the text:
A 21 Grand Experiment
Oakland’s Pivotal Avant-Garde Art Space Hangs in There

The address may have changed, twice, and it may have recently run a gauntlet through the city’s use-permit bureaucracy, but the unique arts and performance space 21 Grand has kept its name and lofty goals intact, providing a room in Oakland for visual and musical artists to push the boundaries. Birthed at 21 Grand Ave. in July 2000, it was moved to 4949 23rd St., until that building was torn down to make way for condos. Since 2005, a former warehouse at 416 25th St. (just off Broadway) has been home. (Two homes, actually, as 21 Grand also houses Smythe’s Accordion Center.)
The simple space owes its stimulating atmosphere to the far-from-mainstream mix of visual and sound arts overseen by exhibitions director Darren Jenkins, who curates the installations, and executive director Sarah Lockhart, who books the music.
“We encouraged experimental work,” Jenkins says, “and now we see people doing more experimental work because they know there’s a place for it. Since I moved to Oakland in 1996, I found I was always going to San Francisco to find the art and music I was after.
I got involved with and curated some shows at 2310 [the spiritual predecessor of 21 Grand, on Telegraph Avenue], and some of us who wanted a more active Oakland arts scene created 21 Grand.”
The nonprofit 21 Grand provides exhibition space for artwork that will never make it into for-profit galleries and improvisational music that isn’t guaranteed to draw a large crowd—or possibly any crowd at all. “Darren and Sarah have worked tirelessly to provide a venue for the fringe-music community,” says multimedia artist Dean Santiomieri, who has taken advantage of 21 Grand to perform his electronic, music-video and spoken-word works, often all at the same time. “There is a large alternative-music community in the Bay Area, and 21 Grand is one of the very few venues for us.” Santiomieri recalled the 60th birthday tribute to composer Anthony Braxton, “where the 60 musicians outnumbered the audience.”
Continuing to present shows while working toward compliance with city and ADA regulations, 21 Grand has scheduled a group art exhibit curated by Lian Ladia in March, and the 16-band International Noise Conference, curated by Weasel Walter and No Doctors, on April 10.
21 Grand, 416 25th St., gallery open 4 p.m.–8 p.m. Thu., 4 p.m.–6 p.m. Fri., 1 p.m.–6 p.m. Sat.-Sun., (510) 444-7263, www.21grand.org.
—By Larry Kelp
—Photography by Lewis Smith

This post was also about the benefit we held a few weeks ago at ATA which was a great success. Thanks to everyone who performed, attended, and left a significant quantity of high-quality discounted Valentine’s Day candy for us to eat for the next week.

We are also working to put together benefit shows at other venues, so that we can raise money to pay for the significant costs of what we will have to do building-wise to appease the City of Oakland’s Building Department, including installing a second bathroom and making everything ADA-compliant.