Three Up Front People Assess Commerce & Marketing on Sunset Strip

The restaurant business on Sunset Strip is only "so so," according to three people in Weho's food and beverage industry, one of whom, Delilah Cotto, who works at Blank Check, was quick to assess the biggest problem, and even cited the exact spot at which commerce for restaurants on Sunset Strip fluctuates, as a divide in opposite directions... mediocre, going west, and pretty good, headed east, and while I have no reason to doubt her, it seems more prudent to say, X marks the spot, east of Sunset Plaza, where two food service businesses are side to side, one lit in green, the other in purple.

Ms. Cotto's overall thesis is that the majority of people spending their evenings on her lesser side of commerce, frequent music clubs such as The Whisky and Rainbow Bar & Grill, as Rock of the Aged types, mostly Weho residents who are set in their original Woodstock ways, and, who spend less money for a night on the town, and when they do, they likely spend it on the other side of the strip, which she believes is more in tune with today's times, for whom a strong "Gold" rating isn't the same as number of vinyl served.

Laith Haddad, the owner of The Cuban Seed Cigar Company, a manufacturer of hand made cigars since 1941, was sitting outside his store, as if being calm was as routine as the cigar he waved as if he had twin thumbs. High end, imported cigar business seems impervious to economic conditions, even the dramatic change in awareness about tobacco, and no matter the changing climate in the politics of diplomacy, Cuban cigars always seemed to trade above the fray.

Haddad's most loyal and spendthrift customers belong to a private cigar club he originated, which prompted thoughts about the forthcoming members only Arts Club in a new development to be built where the Hustler store currently exists, co-owned by actress Gwyneth Paltrow, an outgrowth of the original Arts Club in England founded in 1863, when artists and scientists required a safe haven from the ruling class, not necessarily as the ruling class, and while Charles Dickens is touted as one of the founders, and most esteemed members, conspicuously missing, especially for West Hollywood, is the name, Oscar Wilde and it would seem, even as a non-member, he was denied the esprit de corps he could have used from such influential patrons of the arts.

An old, all boys club, seems to be a strange choice of British imports at this juncture in time, when the wealth divide is the greatest chasm that separates Americans from one another. At a time when Megan Markle is taking some of the starch out of the royal family, when contemporary artists have an excess of barriers impeding their ability to earn a living, when CA is the bluest state in the nation and West Hollywood the bluest of any American town, with a super majority that is opposed to the wall President Trump is still insisting on building at our border with Mexico, we seem to be ceding more and more power and entitlements to developers, who, erect with impunity, what no serious person can call a "billboard" and why they are known as "tall walls" by those who embrace and despise them alike. Is West Hollywood choosing "cricket" over "Hamilton" and is this an indication, that our most celebrated visitors soon will be sequestered at the "St. James Club" and not the twice named Sunset Tower Hotel?

Ms. Cotto, like her Blank Check colleague, Stefanie, gives Gwyneth Paltrow high marks as an actress and in business, with the exception of Paltrow's decision to market this multi-use development as a personal brand. Cotto laid out the changing trends of marketing as someone who seems well versed in the movie business, with an ever changing leading player, from producers, to actors, to directors, and today, she maintained, the star attraction is the platform itself. It would have seemed churlish for me to have added footnotes to the solo spots she cast so correctly and in chronological order, but it does seem one of the most impressive and enduring legacies of West Hollywood, are women who made essential contributions that created West Hollywood's singular brand, and made their business brands "names of the essence," including: Mary Pickford, the first woman to own a Hollywood movie studio, United Artists, Lauren Bon, one of the most relevant artists of L.A. County, heiress of the Annenberg Family, Mitzi Shore, a legend in the comedy business, called The Comedy Store, Pat Collins, a fixture for decades on Sunset Strip, as a performer and business woman, best known as the "Hip Hypnotist," Alla Nazimova, owner and creator of The Garden of Allah Hotel, and... at varying times in its history, Margaret J. Anderson, Irene Dunne, Loretta Young, Muriel Slatkin and Seema Boesky, owners of The Beverly Hills Hotel.

If this has been a conspicuous misstep by Ms. Paltrow, who would blame her for making herself a force to be reckoned with, as a result of having just rid herself of her long term abusive relationship with the most infamous producer in the history of Hollywood. One should have expected better protection from her business partners, however, if not, also West Hollywood itself, since Paltrow is already the target of a pervasive hate campaign that seems as unshakable as other myths Made in America, accusations of Fake News and Faked Birth Certificates, for instance, that continue to haunt the two biggest American brands, Trump Enterprises and President Trump both.