Upfront

Happy trails

Artfully sprucing up the pedestrian trail that links Old Sacramento to Discovery Park is on local environmental advocates’ agenda. A public art installation is in the works for a short stretch of trail in an effort to make the blighted area more appealing. After planning the River City Run last year, organizer Ian Oeser “found that there was one particular area that needed a lot of attention.” He’s referring to the no man’s land north of Old Sacramento where the trail passes an old PG&E building and the Union Pacific rail yard. An 8-foot-high chain-link fence topped with barbed wire collects trash, and that section of trail is “kind of unsightly,” Oeser said. The Earth Day Network, which also organizes the California State University, Sacramento, Earth Day Celebration, spearheaded an effort to install temporary panels along 50 feet of the fence. Community members will be invited to help decorate the six largest panels with paint and natural materials at the CSUS Earth Day Celebration on April 22. Organizers want the simple outline of a cyclist, joggers and the riverfront to serve as an “underlay for artistic expression” that will reflect the “character of the riverfront.” Seventeen smaller panels are being completed by local artists. Though a permanent future for the area north of Old Sacramento has yet to be decided, the Earth Day Network hopes the panels, which will hang for one month, will “demonstrate opportunity to improve the character of the recreational and utilitarian riverfront trail and highlight it as a potentially nice place.” Organizers want to encourage city officials to create a pedestrian- and tourist-friendly riverfront that will link the old town with Discovery Park.

Junta exiled from K Street

Opening an all-ages club in Northern California can be the business equivalent of having a “kick me” sign taped to your posterior—just ask Troy Agid, owner of Junta, the under-21 music venue that was shut down earlier this month by Sacramento city officials not much longer than a month after it opened.

Agid said he sank more than $80,000 into refurbishing the club, which is located at 718 K Street in the basement below Bonehead Tattoos, which he also owns. After being signed off on all the required inspections, the club was scheduled to open in mid-December, but at the last minute, Agid said, the Code Enforcement Department refused to issue an entertainment permit, delaying the opening until January 25.

Before that could happen, city inspectors descended upon Junta on January 18 and informed Agid that he’d now have to apply for a “change of use” permit and consult with an architect to bring the space up to the current building code. The club was allowed to open with a temporary permit, but on March 4, the Sacramento Police Department showed up and cited Agid for having only two security guards on duty instead of the four required by the permit, even though there were only 20 people in attendance.

The charge was dropped in late March, but according to Agid, it was cited by Code Enforcement as one of three reasons—along with another charge that was never brought and a failure to meet change-of-use requirements that were never defined—Junta’s temporary live-entertainment permit was permanently revoked on April 10.

“I can’t believe they’d let this happen to anyone who was attempting to open a business,” said Agid, who has owned and operated Bonehead Tattoos since 1995. “Especially an entertainment business right in the middle of the area that’s supposed to be their entertainment district.”

Neither the Code Enforcement Department nor the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency (SHRA) had replied to SN&R inquiries at press time, but Agid said he is currently negotiating with the SHRA, which has designs on the K Street area. “Apparently, they’re going to make an offer to buy me out,” he said. “I’m kind of waiting on that before I sic the lawyer on them.”