There are several Saturdays, my mom and I entered our local cheese, which we visit every week. This store, for example, Cheese, in Silver Lake, belongs to Glenn Harrell. Glenn and I have been friends for a long time. His shop is the place where I receive my favorite Cabot Cheddar, and Glenn introduced me to a multitude of other cheeses, including a red cheddar called Red Storm and a truffle brie which is most preferred of all time.
Glenn always has time for me. One day, I was wondering a cheese in a fantastic book that I read “The Inquisitor's Tale”, and he helped me find this exact cheese, épises, in his shop. A stinking cheese for sure, but delicious.
There is no shortage of samples with regard to Glenn. You can leave your store filled after trying many cheeses on crispy crackers.
You can therefore imagine my sadness when we entered his shop on a particular Saturday, and Glenn told my mother and me that he had to close his shop at the end of April, due to an increase in rent. It turns out that cheese faces a 300% increase in rent that Glenn says he just can't pay. The rumor wants, in place of Say Cheese, a bakery and sandwich shop will appear.
“I was waiting for the shoe to fall”, it is how Glenn explained to my mother and to me. “I knew four and a half years ago that the owner was looking for a new tenant (who could pay more rent).”
This is not the first time that one of my favorite stores will have closed due to the increase in rents. A few years ago, the Jasmine garden, a flower store in Los Feliz, disappeared. In place, you guessed it: another coffee. My favorite Silver Lake Italian restaurant, food, closed its doors last year, in part because the cost of the race has become too much. I fear that in a few years, all the places that make these special districts be replaced.
Glenn has been an integral part of Silver Lake and owner of Say Cheese for 26 years. He is a former member of the Silver Lake neighborhood council. The shop has always been a meeting field, a place where foreigners start spontaneous conversations with each other, where people connect. During my last visit, I met a nice woman who discussed with me for a long time of the almost fenced of our local gellateria, Pazzo Gelato. Many people know Glenn by name – our neighbor from the neighborhood, for example. She was shocked when we told her that the cheese said.
Los Angeles is a city of nearly 4 million people, most of whom will never know. But local and long -standing businesses like Say Cheese create a community in the middle of this big city on which many of us depend, which makes us proud to live where we live. And yet these companies that define are at risk. As Glenn said, “I think it happens throughout the city of Los Angeles.”
And there is also this problem: if stores like Glenn continue to close, why would anyone choose to live in Silver Lake during another district? Unique companies are one of the reasons why the value of properties – and now rents – has increased in Silver Lake in the first place.
The truth is that it is the little things that matter most in a community. Each district has a coffee (or 20). We do not want channel companies to replace the rare stores which give the districts their personality. When these small businesses close, we lose what Silver Lake (and Los Angeles) really is.
Ezra Halkett is a 10 -year -old child who lives in the Silver Lake district in Los Angeles.
