The Must Closes Due to Change in Ownership

• I'm not surprised by any of this, she hired me to run the Bistro/Bar. She knew nothing about the restaurant business and I gave her a lot of advice. She fired the Boy that did all the work building and setting up the Gallery on the day the Major cut the ribbon and over nothing. A week or 2 later she demoted me to assistant manager of Weeneez and said we needed to talk.  When I went in for my next shift she had already taken my name out of the computer. She was always fighting with her partner, she'd stay up at night and watch back surveillance videos of times when she wasn't in the open business. Total wacko and yeah I think Cindy Carroll is Julie too!

• Buuuuhh, that sux!!!!...Big Weenz for sure!!! Not Cool- Days notice Via Snail mail is obviously not plenty notice plus it never was received.

• Julie Rico is a low life, who could not stand the success of the must

• Newsflash: Julie Rico = Cindy Carroll. Anyone who spends more than 5 minutes with Julie would NEVER stand up to defend her. She is a low life, vile, human being. I know this because I see her almost everyday. She has no friends in the world, I can assure you that.

• I am beginning to think this Cindy Carroll may just be Julie in yes another slippery guise...She knows just a little too much and via google-- well she simply doesn't exist. Regardless of the alleged conduct of anyone at The Must, Julie's behavior was out of line. Unfortunately, her history of erratic , imbalanced and abusive behavior doesn't give her much slack or defense. when I lived across the street @ The Alexandria I used to spend a lot of time at Weeneez for the wi-fi- the food was inconsistent at best but hey- when you want free wi-fi you put up with it. I eventually had to stop going there because I couldn't bear seeing Julie humiliate and verbally abuse her employees anymore. Go read the yelp reviews-- you'll see she has a history of aliases and counter attacking a bad review. http://www.yelp.com/biz/weeneez-los-angeles-3 Julie did this to herself and she deserves whatever she gets.

• Anonymous, DO you know Julie Rico? Really know her?

• It is not Julies fault that the space was not purchased by Rachel and Coly. They should have purchased it. Its just common sense.

• The Must bar should have been purchased by Coly and Rachel. If they were thriving so much and doing a kick ass job. Why did they not buy it? They had plenty of time to make an offer. Their biz model was working. Anyone with that kind of cache could easily find investors to buy the restaurant. Why blame Julie when the Must decided to not purchase the restaurant. This is not Julies fault. I dont see how you think it could be. There was a fundamental misunderstanding by the Must that was propagated by Rachel. If one of her partners had stepped forward to tell her that her ideas were flawed they might have made a real offer for the restaurant. This is what should have happened. I for one sure wish they had bought the restaurant. People would not be attacking Julie if they did.

• In her spare time (from selling hot dogs), Julie has cured cancer, rescued numerous cats from trees and burning buildings, solved the fiscal crisis, and perfected a perpetual motion machine. In addition, her farts smell of lilac and peppermint.

• One more thing, Julie Rico/ Cindy Carroll must hate downtown LA. She took a vibrant, thriving hot spot, that was bringing people from all over LA to our community, and loved deeply by locals, and turned it into another vacant, boarded-up space. She's taking our revitalization backwards. JULIE RICO MUST LEAVE DOWNTOWN.

• Cindy Carroll is Julie Rico. Only Julie speaks so subjectively. She thinks she's a victim, and she is the only one who thinks she's the victim here. SUPPORT THE MUST! BOYCOTT JP LOUNGE!

• Cindy... Do you know Coly and Rachel? Have you met them?

• Fine artists in Los Angeles are the step children to Hollywood. They are not as glamorous, do not make as much money and do not get a lot of PR. Collectors in LA are few and far between too. Many people here own plasma tv's, Lamborghinis, BMWs etc. But look on their walls and there might be little to no art at all. Or the art they do have has nothing to do with supporting current culture. We artists live on the periphery of our society. This is the case in L.A. -unfortunately. Although L.A. depends on us artists, because we are the source for fresh ideas. Because we do not care about being in cliques, we can think and live independent lives thus generating creative energy that is new. L.A. depends on this energy because they sell it in Movies, records, on television and all media sources. Intellectual property is the United States biggest export. Without us artists all of the intellectual industries would crash. So is Julie going to never work in this town again. Of course, because she is part of our group, the periphery, the independents, the creatives that do not care about the BMWs. She cares about art and artists. She has produced thousands of artists events. She has spoken with thousands of artists to help support their ideas. She has worked on movies, Lollapalooza tour in 95' as the art director and many other things. Julie is needed as a leader for us artists. She acts as a beacon of power for those that live on the periphery. If this MUST thing happened it happened because these people are evil. They are cliquish, shallow and typical L.A. people that did not care about anything but money. All of the comments that I have read are about crying over the bar. The complaints have been about bad art on display. If the patrons and the bar did not care about art, then no wonder they needed to go. Art is the most important thing to Julie.

• http://www.ladowntownnews.com/articles/2010/07/09/news/doc4c3757c425da2806720748.txt

• Cindy Carroll = Sock Puppet. Notice the fascination with the Must's friends in the PR world. LA Eater "Informant" (that Julie claims she wasn't) "The Must, even with friends in the publicity industry, is sinking faster than the Titanic in an ice field, and long-time customers are duped into paying the same price for an inferior product." from Julie Rico's post in Blogdowntown " If the journalists had investigated a little deeper they would have discovered that the informant, (which was not me) was accurate in their claims that the Must kitchen was a mess and worse! http://la.eater.com/archives/2009/07/02/the_matter_of_the_must_owners_response_our_apology.php The Must is good at spinning accurate press information into inaccurate PR to help them. The Must ended up getting a ton of good press in their favor because Rachel and Coly put their PR spin on the matter that they were innocent. They were as guilty as sin." Cindy Carroll from above. "There was nothing illegal done. Otherwise there you would be seeing a lot more activity surrounding the incident. If you read the articles revolving around this incident you will see that what THE MUST did was commit multiple violations then covered up thru their use of savvy pr moves."

• S. Rachel and Coly harmed Julie. Your exact story was heard far and wide by people that came into the Must on a regular basis. Artists that showed at the Must all told Julie what was said by Rachel and Coly all of the time. Julie had a gallery downtown in 1988. She knows all of the old art crowd. They are her friends. Julie can do whatever she wants to do in life. Your propaganda campaign that Julie is finished is just more hog wash from someone that really does not know the downtown scene at all. Julie is a mover and shaker downtown. She produced the LA Art Fest a few years ago. It was the most spectacular art festival to ever be seen in L.A. She has produced more art shows than all of the dealers put together over there on 5th street. She is a top producer of art exhibitions and events. Recently producing a fundraiser for an artist friend who fell from a scaffolding. Which was a huge success. In addition, she worked with the Skid Row artists collective helping organize and have meetings at Weeneez. They are doing great. Julie is an amazing positive art energy in Los Angeles. She has seen and done it all. Your pitiful attempt at demonizing her is just that pitiful.

• Cindy apparently is drinking whatever kool-aid Julie Rico is stirring up. Considering the quality of the food at Weeneez I'd be concerned for my health ( let's face it her sanity is already compromised) You are painting Julie in hues of a victim who did all she could to bring "Light and Love" to downtown-- far from the truth. She was greedy,needy personality who ceaselessly jockeyed to be a maven of the arts scene-- sure she did a few good thing here and there but it never really seemed genuine-- more like a person who wished to be seen as a person who does generous things. She wanted to build herself up as a mover and shaker in the New Downtown but all she managed to do is build the tackiest restaurant and amass a list of enemies a mile long. What you fail to acknowledge is that Julie HARMED The Must and regardless of the personalities that entered in to the agreement- sending a letter of eviction via mail on a HOLIDAY WEEKEND is cruel and calculated and to the dwellers of DTLA ( a small town in a big metropolis) it is simply inexcusable. It is truly awful what happened not just to The Must and it's employees. However the one good thing is ( if some glimmer of good can come out of this) Julie has systematically and permanently blackballed herself from a life and livelihood in Downtown Los Angeles. So to that- thank you Julie Rico, thank you and good riddance to bad rubbish( and HORRIBLE hot dogs).

• I loved The Must and the entire staff, and hope they either prevail in this space or find a great new one. Legally, I can't say who's right or wrong, but it sure seems fishy to clean out the place when a notice had been sent, via snail mail, only a day earlier. By the way, nearly every art exhibit put up by the annoyingly New Age-spouting Julie was utter CRAP. No offense meant to individual artists, but if anything could have driven me out of that place on certain occasions, it was those eyesores!

• Chaser, This is not about feelings. This is about rules and regulations and laws that were all broken. The emotional stuff happened but companies need to follow laws especially when it comes to restaurants. The Must did not follow the laws.

• Chaser unless you have seen the contract you have no idea what can and cannot be done. I think so far there are about 200 legal theories by attorneys and laymen on the blogs. Good thing we do have courts to regulate this babble. If we had to rely on the public at large to decide private business matters the world would go to hell in a hand basket.

• Here are Julie links to prove her case of Rachel and Colys obnoxious to say the least behavior: They preferred to ignore my insights with the Health Department and created code issues resulting in a our first B for the kitchen: On 6/25/2009 Weeneez was given their first B from the health department due to the lack of sanitation provided by the Must in the Kitchen. The Must refrigerator had been out for 3 days. The Must chef was still using the food for patrons even though it was 60-70 degrees. The health inspector had us throw out over a hundred pounds of food. There were numerous articles on this subject during this time. They denied having screwed up with the health department and the articles that were written backed them up as being totally innocent in this matter. But in fact I have the full report here and it clearly states that they had created many violations in our kitchen. If the journalists had investigated a little deeper they would have discovered that the informant, (which was not me) was accurate in their claims that the Must kitchen was a mess and worse! http://la.eater.com/archives/2009/07/02/the_matter_of_the_must_owners_response_our_apology.php The Must is good at spinning accurate press information into inaccurate PR to help them. The Must ended up getting a ton of good press in their favor because Rachel and Coly put their PR spin on the matter that they were innocent. They were as guilty as sin. I did not come forward at that time because it affected my business too. Please reserve judgement: On numerous occasions I had to call the police because Rachel would go on a rampage and take down my cameras for security, break my things and steal items that we needed that were in her way in the back. Please reserve judgement: Another time Rachel and Coly totally freaked out on a group of PR people the Girls in Tech because they wanted to host their event in Weeneez even though they were booked in the Must area. Writer Alexia Tsotsis writes for the LA Weekly stating in her article: "A very powerful female once mused, "There is a special place in hell for women who don't help each other." This was in direct reference to Rachel and Coly's unwillingness to cooperate with the Girls in Tech by allowing them to have their panel discussion in Weeneez and then the Party in the MUST. Rachel and Coly insisted that they have their meeting in a small hallway that was very dark with their music turned up loudly. Well that was not what this group needed. They needed space peace and quiet so that they could get their message across. Feel free to write the head of Girls in Tech to verify Rachel and Colys unreasonable behavior that night. http://blogs.laweekly.com/stylecouncil/tech/last-night-girls-in-tech-and-w/

• Here's a little hint, Cindy: nobody cares about all personal nonsense and handwringing or all the "spread joy and love" ashram-babble or who might have hurt somebody else's widdle feelings. This isn't grade school. Anybody serious about serving notice doesn't send eviction notices by regular mail. Landlords and even business partners aren't entitled to seize stock until due process has been served, no matter how threatened they feel or angry they feel or fed up with the arrangement. I hope the Must or something like it moves down by us on 9th Street. We need more businesses between uptown and south park. Between stupid Lakers fans tearing up businesses and landlord/leasing nonsense like this, we'll be lucky to keep any businesses downtown other than 7-11.

• Julie has always been a person to help those in need of help. If this happened it happened because the Must people did horrible things to her. She would never not help people unless they are trying to kill her. Julie has helped so many people her Karma will always be good. The Must people were mean to her every single day. I did an exhibition there and I saw first hand the treatment they doled out on Julie. While hanging our show we asked if we could have a beer and Rachel said no. Julie would hang beautiful exhibitions for them in the space and they treated her like an unwanted step child. They took over her office. Gave her an inch of space to work in. Took out her security cameras in the kitchen. Just ripped them out. Rachel did that. They violated health code laws and the list goes on and on. Also, she wanted to sell the restaurant to them. But they said we have a lease for 5 years ha ha. We dont have to give you any money. But Rachel lied to everyone that she had a lease. She had a contract only. Rachel and Coly made a really poor decision to not buy the restaurant. This is why the employees are out of work. Not because of Julie.

• Your last comment is exactly what Weeneez Inc. did to the Must. "have to act destructively to other in your path" and "exhibit hate, anger and spread mean spirits to the world". Maliciously destroying ones lively hood is just plain WRONG. BAD KARMA! Weeneez and your karmic energy is poison to the world. The Must will emerge stronger, better, and ready for better paths that are in their future.

• You should support the Must. Does that mean that you have to act destructively to others in your path. Does that mean you have to exhibit hate, anger and spread mean spirits to the world. Why do that? If you want to support the Must then you should say that. Not insult spread your strange horrible energy to the world. I am not sure how that could help the Must. Hating is not going to help anyone. It will only add fuel to a fire.

• If they took the computer, California Penal Code Section 502 might be of interest: http://law.onecle.com/california/penal/502.htm l

• hmmm seems like cindy drank some the the julie rico crazy juice. the must is more than just a bar, it is a representation of the good in downtown. a place where you can hang with your friends, enjoy great food and some amazing red sangria! what the hell has weeneez done? that place is never open and the one time i ate there it was disgusting. i will do all i can to support the must.

• Weeneez, can suck the Weeneez! What jerk offs, I go to the must weekly, this pisses me off. Save The Must!!

• From what I understand they were not tenants but partners in the Weeneez company. They were bound by contractual law. There was nothing illegal done. Otherwise there you would be seeing a lot more activity surrounding the incident. If you read the articles revolving around this incident you will see that what THE MUST did was commit multiple violations then covered up thru their use of savvy pr moves. I think you should really read every blog not just the hateful ones. Yes I am not a person to belong to a gang mentality. It has always been my life goal to be independent in thinking. To me this is about lynching a person with rumors, innuendo, no real facts and mass hysteria. If you are one to buy into mass hysteria then I hope I am never in a crowded room with you when there is a fire.

• From what I understand they were not tenants but partners in the Weeneez company. They were bound by contractual law. There was nothing illegal done. Otherwise there you would be seeing a lot more activity surrounding the incident. If you read the articles revolving around this incident you will see that what THE MUST did was commit multiple violations then covered up thru their use of savvy pr moves. I think you should really read every blog not just the hateful ones. Yes I am not a person to belong to a gang mentality. It has always been my life goal to be independent in thinking. To me this is about lynching a person with rumors, innuendo, no real facts and mass hysteria. If you are one to buy into mass hysteria then I hope I am never in a crowded room with you when there is a fire.

• Wow, Cindy. You are certainly a lone voice in support of Julie in all this mess. Probably THE first person I have read who stepped up in defense of her name. I wonder what your affiliation is with her. Certainly illegally removing property after a tenant has paid the month's rent is not categorized as "kind and generous". Or maybe I need a new dictionary.

• Julie Rico is a gem. A kind generous person to a fault. These women used and abused her for their own gain. They seem mean

• Julie Rico is a cunt.

• I never like to hear of a fellow bar owner down on their luck. I really hope they find a resolution to this problem and The Must can get back in business.

TotalComments: 34