Supporters of Patticakes Dessert Co. came out in force at Tuesday's Altadena town council meeting to support the business whose mural has met with approval by most neighbors but incurred the wrath of county code enforcers.
Patticakes owner Mike McLellan gave an impassioned defense of the mural, which depicts a coffee cup and desserts, saying that he had just eight days to make it comply to county codes. "I'm not going to paint the wall over, but I'll put a tarp on it," McLellan said. "I'll find the pinkest, most awful tarp I can find."
The mural joins the sizable list of Altadena businesses that have crossed the path of county code enforcers in recent months. McLellen read from a letter from a county inspector threatening fines and jail time if the mural was not removed.
But, says McLellen, despite the single citizen complaint that put this in motion, the mural has not only improved the appearance of the small commercial area -- it's also been a defense against graffiti.
"It was a big blank white wall," McLellan said, a frequent target of taggers. He would call the county abatement crew to fix it, but it took a long time so he kept his own stash of paint to cover the graffiti. Deciding that the white was too tempting, he painted it gray, but it still got tagged.
McLellen said that local artist Bill Madrid kept on him to allow him to paint a mural on the blank space, which McLellen finally agreed to do for $2,500 on a payment plan. It took about a month to paint, McLellen said, including an anti-graffiti coating, and it has not been tagged since that day.
Several neighbors and customers of Patticakes showed up to praise McLellen's contributions to the community and the mural, one saying "It does nothing but enhance our neighborhood."
Town council chair Gino Sund said that the council has little power to help; they don't enforce county codes, and the Altadena commercial standards don't permit billboards -- and county counsel determined that the Patticakes wall is a billboard, not a mural, because it depicts the products sold inside the store. "We'll take this up with the supervisor's office, but we don't actually have the power to do anything," Sund said.
McLellen has few options: the county says remove the mural, reduce it to the size of a sign, or apply for a sign variance hearing, which would cost $8,581 for a hearing and study fee that's nonrefundable, win or lose.
