"Something that has to come": The Arroyo Food Co-op celebrated its opening

Mayor Bogaard (center) at the opening ceremony: "You're at the cutting edge." (Image: -chs)

Green balloons bounced in the afternoon heat, the mayor cut the ribbon with the obligatory oversized scissors, and inside the store shoppers chatted with each other as they stood in line to purchase coffee, kombucha, chocolate and soap. On Saturday the Arroyo Food Co-op celebrated its grand opening with a party. The AFC is the first community-owned store on the east side of Los Angeles and only the second in L.A. county. About 80 people gathered for the party.

Among the visitors was Marilee Valkass from Altadena, who had long been hesitant to join the co-op — the initial investment is $30, the full lifetime membership costs $300 — because she wasn't convinced that the project was financially viable. But the opening party made her rethink her position: What if she helped make the project work? "Maybe I'll get involved and not just throw money at it," she said.

If Valkass joins she'll be one of about 700 members, though only a small percentage participates actively. Originally the idea of an Altadena resident, Patrick Reagan, the AFC has been in the works since 2009. Operational since June, the store is currently open three days a week, and members can pre-order items online. The goal is for the full market to operate seven days a week starting as soon as it is financially feasible.

At the party on Saturday, Mayor Bill Bogaard spoke of the opening of the store as a significant development. "You're at the cutting edge of something that has to come," he said.

Two young people who live across from the store, Liana and John Gamber-Thompson, sounded similarly enthusiastic about the co-op and what it has brought to their patch of Pasadena. Over the course of the year, the couple has been watching volunteers from another local community project, Transition Pasadena, turn a boring strip of Bermuda grass in front of the AFC into a thriving garden with tomatoes and fruit trees. "It just feels like more of a neighborhood," John said. (Not to mention that their baby, Wesley, got to pick one of the first tomatoes in the garden.)

Liana and John joined the cooperative early this year but soon realized that the store was having a hard time coming off the ground. Following the same train of thought as Valkass, they decided to volunteer for the co-op. "We wanted it to succeed," Liana said, "so it made sense to help out." The young woman — she is a post-doc researcher at USC — now lends a hand with the pre-ordering system, while baby Wesley hangs out in the store. "He thinks it's his," Liana said. After a short pause she added: "And it is."

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The Arroyo Food Co-op is located at 494 N Wilson Ave. Store hours are 4-7 p.m. on Tuesdays and 11 a.m.-6 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.

Pavement or parklet? What streets are about

Coming to Pasadena? Parklet, here on Valencia Street in San Francisco

On Friday, the Downtown Pasadena Neighborhood Association posted a picture of a patch of green with a bench and bike racks on its Facebook page. It added just a few words, "Parklet - Herb Garden - Bicycle Parking: 3 in 1."

By Sunday, 76 Facebook users had liked the entry, and about 20 had posted comments. Most responses were negative: extending the sidewalk into the street is too dangerous, it slows down traffic, it wastes money. Some readers bravely supported the idea. Others asked where the picture was taken.

The background for the debate: The Playhouse District Association has proposed "a necklace of parklets" along Colorado Boulevard between Oakland and Hudson avenues. It hopes that the pedestrian-friendly design will transform the character of the neighborhood from a former highway to a destination and that it will enhance the district's role as an arts and entertainment hub.

The PDA's proposal is expected to be picked up by the city soon. Support for it is already there. The Los Angeles Times recently quoted Mayor Bill Bogaard as saying, "Pasadena is pursuing a broader concept of what streets are about. They're not simply for moving cars as fast as you can. Streets are corridors of society and community."

As for the parklet pictured in the DPNA's post, it is located in San Francisco where, incidentally, the parklet trend began. As the story goes, one day back in 2005, the San Francisco design group ReBar rolled out a stretch of sod on a metered parking space — yes, it had paid for the spot — and adorned it with a tree in a pot. The 2-hour happening was so successful that the bay area city made more permanent parklets its own. New York City, Los Angeles, Oakland,  Philadelphia, Chicago and other places soon followed suit. In Pasadena, the debate is still on.

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To learn more about the history of parklets in general and in San Francisco specifically go to a Brief Parklet History or read Parklets offer a pause on busy Powell St. on SFGate.

Photo by Mark Hogan from San Francisco, USA (Freewheel Parklet  Uploaded by SaltyBoatr) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons