NCWP addresses flaws in the airport’s effort to move the runway north, more info page 24.
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Cinco hopes to reach number one with new restaurant New restaurants open from time to time in the HomeTown News area, but few have seemed to garner as much buzz as the highly anticipated opening of Westchester’s Cinco. The Oaxacan-style restaurant, which is located at the site of the former Siam Thai Restaurant location, is slated to open in March pending its last approvals from building inspectors. Cinco is a collaboration between, you guessed it, five friends who bring their wealth of experience working at Santa Monica area restaurants and bars to the project. Co-owners Blake Landis, Hernan Fernando, Will Smith, Ben Molina and John Weir are
putting everything on the line–houses mortgaged, motorcycle sold, bank accounts drained– to create the type of restaurant and bar they’d like to hang out in. “This is kind of a collection of all of our unique skills and expertise. Overall, we just have a great bar experience, bar knowledge,” said Molina. “We love the opportunities that the business entails. You can bring all your influences; you can bring art, music, culture, food, drinks all together in a social environment and make it a business.” Landis gets the credit for being the driving force behind the idea of pooling
the group’s resources and knowledge to open the restaurant. In 2011, the group got serious about opening their own place, wrote a business plan and started mapping out recipes. Fernando’s Oaxacan heritage was an easy place to start looking for influences. The group originally looked to opening a restaurant and bar in Santa Monica, but after a deal fell through, Landis found a listing for their current location on Craigslist. After checking out the spot, he knew immediately it was “the one.” (continued on page 8) At right: The perimeter of the restaurant includes leather booths, while the center of the restaurant is home to a large square bar.
Neighbors share frustration about parking with LMU Neighbors filled the Westchester Senior Center for the LMU Neighborhood Advisory Committee (NAC) meeting held on February 13 to share their displeasure with Loyola Marymount University’s change of policy to charge for parking and the resulting influx of students parking in the streets surrounding the school. A representative from the Department of Transportation (DOT), Tamara Martin, was on hand to discuss the realities of putting a permit parking district into place, which would allow only permit holders the right to park on certain streets. As a condition of its Master Plan, LMU has agreed to pay $24,000 a year for the next twenty years to help offset the cost of a parking permits. Since those funds would cover roughly three permits per household in the affected area, neighbors contend they will be footing the bill for any additional permits, including those for guests. “Asking for a district doesn’t necessarily guarantee the district. Your streets would each have to petition, so individual streets may or may not have signs posted eventually,” said
Martin. “We may or may not receive sufficient support from your community to actually go ahead and establish a district. The support would have to be two-thirds of the blocks petitioning.” After blocks petition to be considered for a parking district, DOT would then do a parking study to find the actual boundaries of the district. At that point, at least six blocks asking for a parking district would have to have demonstrated: a substantial impact from non-residential vehicles, 75% of the street would have to be parked up and 25% of the cars would have to be determined to be coming from out of the area. If the streets pass the parking studies, there are more reports, public hearings, a comment period and reports to the city council and transportation committee before the district can be approved. Just getting the signs posted can take up to six months and the whole process can take anywhere from a year to five years, according to Martin. Neighbors took issue with the amount of time it would take to get a permit (continued on page 4)
At left: Cars are parked around the curb on Gonzaga near the university.
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