Misadventures in Borrance or How to Sue Your HOA

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A gated community might protect you villains outside, but not inside.

Homeowners associations are good ideas, but only if you get an ideal situation. A HOA is essentially a group project; members own part of a larger property and share certain costs. What happens when there are more than a few bad apples in the bunch? You might find yourself in court, either as a plaintiff or defendant. We were both and decided to leave the HOA and the dictatorship behind, but not without a hefty financial settlement, most of which went to pay our lawyers.

Our HOA, Kisha Townhomes Homeowners Association, was a small 10-unit gated community in a mixed usage (residential/industrial) neighborhood in the Harbor Gateway area of Los Angeles, just outside of Torrance. By May 2011, a third management company, Ark Management, had decided they didn't want to continue their contract with Kisha Townhomes and by the beginning of July 2011, the complex became self-managed with a newly elected board.

In less than a year, we were in small claims court three times and decided to sell. This article is about our legal journey; neither of us are attorneys so we aren't giving legal advice. I'm describing what worked for us.

Get it in writing
On the very day of the election, the board began to break civil codes. They refused to allow a member (1363.05 (b)), my husband, then still serving as an elected treasurer, to attend the rest of the meeting. All three board directors were informed in writing that this occured and all three directors then conspired to keep the next meeting time, date and location a secret. By California state civil code (1363), board meetings must be announced with an agenda (1363.05) at least four days in advance and only board meetings dealing with certain issues may be closed executive sessions (1363.05 (b)). Meeting notifications must include the time, date and place of the meeting.

In small claims court in October 2011, the HOA treasurer, Scott Allred, attempted to disclaim knowledge of our attempts to find out the meeting date, but that was hard to deny when we brought out emails (many of which had received replies) and we showed the signs we had posted on the community board as well as the written threat sent by the board (written by Scott Allred) regarding the signs that simply asked "Board of Directors: When is the next  meeting?"

Posting this on the board was controversial. 

The signs posted on the community message board beginning on Friday, August 19, were torn down, leaving the pins on the ground. We put another sign up and this was torn down in about two hours or less. This continued until Monday. We finally posted notices on our garage and door as well. The notices were torn down off of our garage Monday morning. The August meeting was Monday evening. We were finally notified of the meeting after the meeting when the July meeting minutes were left on our doormat.

The 8.5 x 11-inch signs were a winning point and made that judge laugh. She pointedly asked why, if Allred and president Gregoire Jaubin had not just given everyone the information as required by law if they truly were perplexed about who was asking the question. We had only expected that one of the board directors would add the time, date and place to the signs and not rip them down every two to four hours for the next three days (until the date of the meeting).

Because of the board's "decorative authority" we could not post
anything when they decorated the community message board. 

Websites that I found helpful were the Davis-Stirling.com, Onecle.com, California Condo Guru and HOATalk. Davis-Stirling.com is not the official website of the Davis-Stirling Act. It is a resource sponsored by a law firm and some of the writing is based on that legal firm's opinion much like the California Condo Guru is based on one attorney's practice. Onecle.com has the legal codes without commentary. On HOA Talk you can read news about HOAs and ask questions and get real-life reactions and opinions.

Try to play nice

So going back to July 2011, and how we got to small claims court in October 2011, we asked about the August meeting. We asked all three directors. We asked to see the July meeting minutes. The board has 30-days to produce them according to the Davis-Stirling Act. We received the minutes past the 30-days. The directors left it for us on our door mat, AFTER the August meeting. The date of the August meeting was on the meeting minutes. The directors had known for over a month when and where the meeting was. All three directors had failed to tell us even though we quoted the civil codes that were being violated and informed each director in writing to insure that one couldn't claim lack of knowledge.

These were torn down the morning of the unannounced meeting.

Our next step was to ask in writing to meet (Request for Resolution in Civil Code 5935). We even sent a letter by first class mail. You don't have to do this for small claims court, but the judge likes to see that you made an attempt to resolve the problem before filing a case. You do need to do this if you intend or must take action in superior court (5930).

When a member requests in writing for internal dispute resolution the HOA must take part (5910 (c)). In this case, when the civil code says "shall" it means must. Our HOA did not respond except to threaten us with some nebulous future action. So the HOA had added to the original problem of barring a member from an open meeting in July (which could have easily been resolved with an apology and future actions to allow the member to attend) by keeping the next meeting secret, holding back the meeting minutes past the 30-day deadline in order to prevent attendance, lying in person and in writing (directors fiduciary duty) about knowledge of the next meeting and by refusing to meet with the member(s) upon request. So they made the original problem worse by breaking more civil codes. In most cases, the civil codes are written into the covenants, conditions and restrictions (CC & R). That means the directors have violated the same codes that they were elected by.

In our case, notification of meetings were supposed to be given in ten days instead of the four required by California state codes. Notification requirements differed. The state code requires posting in a common area but our CC & R required notification either by personal delivery or first-class mail. This added to the violations.

By September 2011, we filed a small claims court case and after being served, the HOA did actually tell us when the September meeting was, but the board gave us less than the required notification time--two more violations. My husband attended but, importantly, attempted to make a protest of the legality of the meeting, but was silenced. He was forbidden to speak on any matter and was threatened with ejection from the meeting. This was again a violation of the Open Meeting Act (1363.05 (h)).

If something, anything is to your knowledge illegal or in violation of civil codes, make an oral and written protest so that the HOA cannot claim you made tacit approval (in attendance of a meeting or by not making a protest for a motion) and so that your protest becomes a matter of record should legal action be taken. Robert's Rules of Order also consider silence to mean consent. Because you cannot count on a disorderly board to keep orderly records, you should immediately follow up with a written correspondence.

In October 2011, two board members, Scott Allred (treasurer) and Gregoire Jaubin (president), showed up in small claims court. We had been advised by friends who had served on HOA boards to ask for a judge and refuse the pro temp judge.

Allred and Jaubin had letters written by all of the members to testify that we were bad people, but these letters were inadmissible. The letters had no bearing on the case but from our perspective when we understood the charges of the hearing that would take place in November, constituted the promotion of a hostile environment and because the charges were proven false, libelous. It also meant that outside of the board meetings, the board directors were privately meeting with each household and conducting business that was not a matter of record.

Kisha Townhomes was ordered by the small claims court judge to produce documents and both Jaubin and Allred agreed to meeting with a mediator. Kisha Townhomes had to pay the court costs and an additional fine of $600.

There are free mediation services available in Los Angeles County, however, because the HOA refused to meet or turn over some documents and did not respond to phone calls and mailed correspondence from the Los Angeles County mediator, the HOA insurance was forced to pay for a real mediator,Judicate West. The board didn't show up for either sessions despite their agreement made in the October small claims court case. The reason given for the first one is that one of the members was on vacation. However, two of the directors were still at the complex on the day and weekend of the meeting and they had been given a choice of the meeting date. We were meeting at their convenience and they failed to show up.

Allred showed up for the last one. This meant that no decision could be finalized because there was only one board director there. We felt the board had been stalling and the stalling cost us money in the form of attorney fees. Before the second mediation meeting, our attorneys attempted to confirm that the board would show up and initially, at the beginning of the mediation, we were assured that Allred was able to sign the contract.

Usually, a contract requires a board meeting and contracts are signed by the president. At the end of the mediation session, we learned that Allred was not able to sign the contract. The board members took another two weeks to sign. They should have called a meeting in those 14 days, but they did not. They also asked for revisions before signing. The court case was in October 2011. The contract wasn't signed until July 2012. That was a full year since the original problem although during that time the board of directors of Kisha Townhomes added a significant amount of violations from July 2011 to May 2012, the time of the first mediation meeting. The mediation should have only required one day.

Pay attention to form and forms

Kisha Townhomes board of directors had been working on their own legal project during 2011. In November 2011, the board attempted to have a hearing against us for misappropriation of funds and for the previous board's decision to allow the lawns to die. The question becomes: Can a former board director be held responsible and legally liable for the decisions made by a previous board? The answer is yes and no.

My husband served on the previous board. He was the treasurer. The president was Tanti Loe, the wife of Scott Allred. That board offered small wages for chores. In the newsletter, there was a call for volunteers. To set an example, my husband volunteered to take out the recyclable bin once a week. He was paid $5 a week. We both did this job which included cleaning around the bin area, taking recyclables out of the trash bin and taking non-recyclables out of the recycle bin. On Mondays, one of us wheeled the bin out to the street and then later brought it back. While it is true that a board director may not be paid for fulfilling his duties, s/he can be paid for work done outside of those duties. Janitorial duties are not usually a responsibility of the board directors. In our CC&R they were considered a separate issue from the responsibilities of a board director and from the office of the treasurer.

The previous board had made a unanimous decision to let the lawns die, due to the citywide restriction that only allowed for watering twice a week during the summer. A year later, the city would decide that three times a week worked better, but that would be too late for many lawns. At the time, the HOA also did not have a gardener and no one was taking care of two lawn areas in the back. At our own expense, my husband and I planted xeriscaping and tomatoes. The tomatoes were shared with other households. What's important here is:

1. Both issues involved unanimous HOA board decisions.
2. No member objected to the decision in writing to the board after being informed by newsletter.
3. None of the other two former board directors, including the former president, Tanti Loe, were being charged for these decisions. Loe is the wife of Scott Allred.
4. The decisions were made in good faith by board directors (5800).

There are certain elements required for a hearing according to state civil code (1363 (g)). The board failed to complete the required legal elements. The elements are:

1. The board must notify the member in writing by personal delivery or first-class mail.
2. The notification must be made at least 10-days before the meeting.
3. The notice must contain the date, time and place of the meeting.
4. The HOA must state the member has a right to attend.
5. If the member requests it, the board must meet in executive session.
6. The board must notify the member of the decision by personal delivery or first-class mail.

Because the board met outside where anyone could listen to the hearing, even from the public sidewalk, they could have been charged with defamation of character. The board also failed to produce documents (meeting minutes and newsletters) at our request that would have shown the two issues were board decisions and they refused to give us the evidence prior to the hearing.

Boards are required to produce records upon request (Corp. Code 8313 ); this was the basis of the October court case. For this reason, by November, the board was fully aware of their loss in court, they were aware of the civil code that required the production of documents and they were aware of the legal repercussions as a result of the October 2011 court case.

Usually, 30 days are allowed by law for the production of documents. Perhaps the best possible reaction of a HOA board in such circumstances would have been to provide the documents earlier or to postpone the hearing for at least 30 days. Neither of these two things happened. The board of Kisha Townhomes never produced the documents. Some of the documents (HOA newsletters) we found on our own.

For the HOA hearing, the board failed to fulfill the elements of due process because power must be exercised in a fair manner and the person accused has the right to know the identity of the accuser and must be given an opportunity to examine the evidence. We requested both and were denied both. If the accuser was either Allred or Loe, then Allred should have recused himself.

We had been advised by email about the hearing and we were advised by email about the hearing results. When we received the results, we were given the evidence. One piece of evidence was the request by the then-HOA president, Tanti Loe, to provide an estimate for the removal of trees. Three of the four trees were removed. Why is this important?

The cost estimate to repair the so-called damage to the lawns, includes the removal of a tree and other plants that had been planted by the developer. For this reason, the removal of the plants was not repairing "damage."

Our plan did not include lawn maintenance. It was for a vegetable community garden and had been approved by the board and gone unchallenged when announced to the membership via newsletter. We produced the newsletters in small claims court.

More importantly, the so-called cost was actually a bid by a licensed contractor. The work wasn't done by that contractor. The work was eventually done for a much lower cost by a non-licensed worker without a written contract (more on this below). The work included other things beyond the re-installment of the lawns such as the repair of driveways. By presenting evidence to the court that is false, the board was violating California state law in several ways. We believe this constituted both perjury and fraud. Another is the civil code 1366.1 now replaced by civil code 5600(b) which forbids the collection of excessive fees. This means a HOA can only impose a fine or assessment that equals the amount of the actual cost. Perhaps the Kisha Townhomes Board hoped to gain enough to offset the small claims court fine.

We were served in December 2011 by the board to go to small claims court in order to enforce the November 2011 hearing results. The court date was in February 2012. We filed a cross-complaint for the production of more documents. We used the failure of the board to fulfill the hearing requirements and due process as well as the board's attempt to profit from the hearing for our defense. By February 2012, the HOA board of directors knew the actual cost because the lawn had been installed. In court, the board was represented by Scott Allred. He presented the free bid estimate as the amount of damage because it was supposed to be the actual cost of the lawn installation. We showed the actual cost of the lawn installment and other added work by showing the bank statements the board was forced to give us as a result of the October 2011 small claims court case we had won.

Again, Kisha Townhomes paid the court costs having lost their case. Scott Allred was not recalled but re-elected and to date remains a director.

Get a reality check
We'd all like to think we're right, but if you need a reality check you can get some for free by talking with your friends about their experiences with HOA matters. That isn't enough. Do some research. I perused articles in the Los Angeles Times, the biggest area newspaper, and joined a forum such as HOA Talk. If things get really bad, call a lawyer for an initial consult.

Directors decorated the whole board so we couldn't post notes.

In December 2011, when the board really outdid themselves in covert operations, we got a lawyer. That month the board hid the board meeting time in a decoration posted on the community board, then took that small handwritten announcement down when sent an email requesting the board meeting time, date and place. The treasurer, Allred, and the former president, Loe, were suspiciously seen going from door-to-door on that particular date and just before the appointed time. They then disappeared into one of the units belonging to a board member, Mel Campbell. Note there was no agenda posted other than playground which had been bought in November so nothing could be discussed according to California state legal codes. There were actually other matters discussed.

When we sent an email asking about a meeting,
this meeting notice disappeared.

One of the hidden issues we discovered by January 2012 was the annual election that we were not informed of, but everyone else was because we had been dropped from the newsletter email list after we filed our small claims court lawsuit. The newsletters had asked for nominations for board directors. This most likely is what was discussed at the December meeting.

Our lawyer was surprised at the actions of the board despite having years of experience as a real estate attorney and living in a condo community herself. In less than six months, the HOA board had stacked up a very thick list of civil and corporation code violations.

I also researched into animal hoarding. The board director who was the dominant force, Scott Allred, had a type of pet not allowed (rabbits) by the CC & R and over the number allowed for any kind of pet. He and his wife had six rabbits and two cats in their three-bedroom townhouse in January 2011. The cats were the most recent addition. The CC & R only allowed cats, dogs, fish and birds with a limit of two total of any kind of animal.

File for small claims court
Election irregularities and non-production of documents are two things that you can file for in small claims court. You file SC-100.

The papers should usually be served to the person listed as the agent of service. You can find that on the Secretary of State's website by doing a business search. In the case that your HOA has not been good about filing the required documents (SI-100 and SI-CID), the person might not be listed or the information might be outdated. Although the management company had ended its contract with Kisha Townhomes, it took nearly two years (July 2013) for the HOA board of directors to change the agent of service of process to, you guessed it, Scott Allred. Due to budget cuts, the Secretary of State's office is behind on suspending HOAs that are late in filing these forms.

We had requested the board file the necessary documents and Allred wrote that he would file them in February 2012, but he did not. Ark Management wrote a letter disclaiming any responsibility as of May 2011 which we forwarded to the Secretary of State as well as a letter of our own as my husband was still listed as treasurer.

File a vacate order
In February 2012, the board lost their small claims court case to enforce their November 2011 hearing decision. That was a no-brainer. However, the judge also dismissed our countersuit which asked for a production of documents and to dismiss the election results.

The elections results were one thorny issue because who would rise to fill the three seats and since the current elected board was the former board, nothing would be gained by giving the positions back to the previous board. However, the non-production of documents was pretty clear cut. All members have a right to see the documents. We were being denied a right and being treated as separate and unequal. The judge was clearly wrong. 

To challenge a judgment you have 30 days and need to file either SC-108 or SC-108A. This is true in any small claims court case and I've done it twice--once without success although the defendants had clearly perjured themselves--and once successfully. Perjury, particularly in a small claims court case, is rarely prosecuted. People who've been hauled into court more than once soon enough learn this, so you have to be ready to respond to all possible sorts of false statements.

When filing the form consider your rights that are guaranteed by the CC & R and state civil code as well as federal guarantees. Consider the effect the decision has on the community at large. Be firm but don't be disrespectful to the judge. When we again went to court, the judge then ruled in our favor and required the board to produce the documents requested, however, the judge failed to actually list the documents requested. Not all judges are diligent in their duties.  Typing out one sentence should not be too much to ask from a public servant.

File for contempt of court
You hear about contempt of court all the time on TV, but small claims court doesn't make it easy to file a motion that doesn't require collection of money. For collection of monetary judgment you can file formSC-220, but for non-monetary judgments that go unfulfilled, you need to file SC-105 (Request for Court Order and Answer). You ask for the court to compel and sanction.

Depending upon your court, this might take even more time. In our second case in February 2012, our judge failed to write anything. When challenged in March 2012, she again failed to specify what documents the HOA board was required to produce. That led to more legal problems with production of documents.

When to call the police
When the board director, Scott Allred, was caught on camera stealing our property from our balcony after previously denying it (orally and in writing), that was the time to call the police. Allred had to climb up  a ladder to steal things from our balcony. Allred was found to be in possession of signs belonging to our real estate agent and ourselves (Incident no. 3736) by two police officers (Medina #39292 and Makari #39560). The police make good witnesses.

There are things that cannot wait for a board meeting and there are things that the board is not responsible for. Theft is something that the board has no jurisdiction over. Vandalism is another. Some people choose to fight when things get really bad such as the condo lawsuit in Hawaii.

When to cut and run

Do you really want to live in a place where your director uses a ladder to climb up to your balcony and steal your stuff? Would you feel safe where petty theft and invasion of privacy are acceptable behavior on the part of a director? Do you want to belong to a HOA where no one would recall a director who has been proven both a thief and a liar, particularly a director serving as treasurer? Do you want to wait for the retaliation? Do you want to live next door to a couple that, in my opinion, were early stage animal hoarders? Can you afford to take on the legal liability of a rogue board? If not, then it's time to sell.

We decided that because we knew this board was making arbitrary and even vindictive and retaliatory actions against us that moving was the best option and renting was not an option.

One important issue that prevented us from renting was legal liability that the board directors ignored. The board of directors bought a playground set from Toys R Us without a member discussion or any legal or budgetary research. We gave the board information about legal requirements. The playground was not installed while we lived there, but we worried that no assessment of legal requirements or future costs had been made in the meeting minutes where the playground was noted. Other members dismissed our concerns when the playground was discussed at the general meeting in January 2012.  This was before we had the opportunity to be proven innocent of the hearing charges in small claims court.

California state has adopted the Consumer Product Safety Commission guidelines as standard for all public playgrounds. California Health and Safety Code mandates statewide regulations for playground safety since 1992. There are state regulations for the design, installation and maintenance of public playgrounds. Although those state regulations address public playgrounds, the Assembly Bill 1144 (2006) put that Health & Safety Code (115725) into effect for common interest developments with playgrounds accessible to the public and according to the Davis-Stirling.com website, section 1.3 seems to include all HOAs.

There are a variety of playground surfaces listed in Public Playground Safety Handbook and recommended by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission:

1. Wood mulch
2. Double shredded bark mulch
3. Uniform wood chips
4. Shredded rubber loose fill
5. Fine sand
6. Course sand
7. Fine gravel
8. Medium gravel

Notice that grass isn't one of those surfaces. Why would anyone put a new lawn in and then install a playground? This was one of our questions, but the board refused to address it. In the meeting minutes, we read no talk about fall zones or regular mandatory inspections or estimating the costs or legal liability. If a child or anyone was injured on the playground and it was found that it didn't conform to mandatory state standards and was not given an initial inspection or regular inspections, then the HOA would be found at fault and because most insurance policies have a stipulation that the coverage doesn't extend to the insured if they are breaking city, state or federal code, the members might be in for the full amount. Head injuries are common and swings are responsible for 67 percent of the injuries .

Our board was heading for an easy to discover violation. We seemed to be the only ones interested in fulfilling legal requirements.

We considered renting, but this seemed like a risky venture for the following reasons:

1. We worried about the legal liability if a playground was installed that didn't meet state standards.
2. The board used non-licensed workers even when the state and the CC&R required licensed contractors and this had us worried about big bills in the future. We asked for contracts in court; the board said there were none. We checked and found the contractor wasn't licensed and any problems would not be covered by insurance as a result.
3. We had asked for termite inspections, but were denied. The board refused to meet and consider tenting even when termites were found, a year after the initial request. Where I had lived previously we had annual inspections. At that time of my request to the HOA, no termite inspections had been done for 2-3 years.
4. We were tired of asking the board to consider the legal requirements while the other members seemed to feel that legal liability wasn't an important issue. It was for us.

We sold at a loss. If your condo is your vacation dream home, then you might want to stick it out and fight, but that can be expensive as well as risky. The Molokai case included death threats and vandalism and took a couple of years to settle.

We sold for $335,000 in 2012. Zestimate says the condo is now worth $441,881, but that doesn't include the predictable legal problems. What's interesting is that Unit #8 attempted to sell for $390,000 in 2012 and lowered the price to $344,000 in January until finally removing the listing (January 25, 2013). Unit #6 attempted to sell for $379,000 in June of this year and had to lower the price to $374,900. Unit #2 just listed in July for $399,000. When four out of ten units wants out, that's not a good sign, particularly if we were portrayed as the problem neighbors and have been out for almost a year. Is there a problem or are these members selling at the same time only a matter of coincidence?

Protect yourself
We understood that there was a full disclosure law in real estate sales. We protected ourselves during mediation. Scott Allred and the other two board directors (Jaubin and Mel Campbell) signed a document in which they swore they would follow the state civil code for agendas and meeting notification. Allred also confirmed that he and his wife no longer had any rabbits on the property. If any of the directors were dishonest, then that might be grounds for a charge of willful misconduct, making the individual director responsible for any financial loss instead of the HOA or us as the seller of the property.

We did everything we could to protect the new owner of our former unit and that person also had access to the court cases which were a matter of public record.

How to vent

If you are going to vent online be sure that you are not crossing the line into slander or libel. Libel or slander must be untrue. Further, if your online rants target a director you do have more leeway because they are quasi-public officials and can be considered limited purpose public figures. The names of the board of directors is or should be public information. If the board of directors is part of a lawsuit, they are often named and their names are in documents submitted to the court.

Stick to the facts, particularly ones that are a matter of public record and/or can be proven in writing. State your opinion as such. The small claims court cases are a matter of public record. Who attended the small claims court case is a matter of record because both the claimants and defendants are required to sign a document before the case is heard. The case often lists the names of the people involved. The names of the officers of a common interest development are a matter of public record and HOAs are required by state law to file SI-100 and SI-CID with that information. Police actions are recorded by incident numbers and reports are filed. We have third-party proof that Allred and his wife Tanti Loe were in possession of rabbits at a number exceeding two.

The U.S. Bill of Rights protects opinion as long as it is not defamatory, slander or libel.You have a right to your opinion, but in a HOA (also known as a common interest development) in order to protect your rights you must be aware of them guaranteed by your CC & R and your state civil codes. You must keep informed about your board's actions and be willing to stand up and say something about violations. I wrote this article mainly because it was difficult to find how to challenge a judge's decision and I wasn't sure what to do for a motion that didn't involve a monetary judgment.

While some people feel that suing your HOA is suing yourself, the same argument could have been made about other civil rights such as voting for minorities and women. When citizens sue the federal, state or municipal governments to protect their civil rights it is a similar issue. If bringing court action is the only way to protect your civil rights, then you need to stand up for yourself and other people. My only issue leaving this experience is that it shouldn't cost so much to protect civil rights in a HOA. States should work to change that problem because in the worst case scenario, people are being threatened and it can take years and a huge financial commitment to fight a HOA. To date, no state representative has responded to my letters, even after the publication of my opinion piece.

Fighting for your rights is what this country was founded on. A good HOA is not a dictatorship and should allow for differences of opinions and active listening by directors who are there to really serve the community and not their own interests.

Thin-crust pizza and salad with doggies under the table

How do you like your pizza? We like ours with a thin crispy crust with a good salad on the side. Our dogs prefer theirs on the floor.  We got in dog time and good pizza at the dog-friendly  Rock & Brews in El Segundo, located 143 Main Street.

This restaurant is not only dog-friendly, it's dog safe. The outdoor port area is entirely enclosed except for the entryway which has a trusty host/hostess standing guard. Dogs at dog-friendly spots are not always dog-friendly themselves, but don't worry. If there's a particularly growly dog already taking up space, your trusty host will find you another table.

We think of it as giving our older dog a chance to prove he earned his CGC and our younger dog gets to practice for his upcoming test. Our doggies were able to fit nicely under the table to maximize their shade space. Water and ice was provided. 

Rock & Brews Garden on Main is a partnership between KISS frontmen Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons with concert industry veterans Dave and Dell Furano and restauranteur Michael Zislis. They envisioned a backstage party atmosphere where you could relax, drink, eat and relax. That's exactly what we did.

Of course, at a beer garden there is a lot of beer and other spirits available. You can even check out their beer menu as long as you remember not to led your favorite Fido do any sampling.  Soft pretzels are well loved at our house so we had to order the Giant Soft German Pretzel ($8.95). This appetizer could be a meal in itself or an appetizer for four.  The pretzel has a firm outside with a soft center. The spicy sweet mustard definitely makes this better than your usual pretzel experience. We look home leftovers and tried it with cheese. 

Canine caveat: A bit of pretzel without the salt is okay although in general yeast breads aren't food for dogs.

Beatles fans will want to try the Strawberry Field Salad  ($10.95) . This lovely cold salad is perfect for the hot summer weather. With a base of baby greens, the crunch of cucumbers and smooth buttery avocados, this salad was a delightful surprise. Who would have thought of strawberries with red onions and candied walnuts? The feta cheese adds an extra tanginess with a lemon pepper vinaigrette to tie all the flavors together. 

You might not associate salads with dogs. For doggie, cucumbers without any sauce are okay. 

Onions, avocados, and candied walnuts are a no.

If you're a SoCal native, how could you pass up the the Surfin’ Surfari Shrimp Pesto which is $13.95 for a 10-inch individual sized pizza or $22.95 for a 16-inch family sized pizza. For $1 extra (individual or $2 for family) you can even get it gluten free. The crust is thin, crispy and hand-tossed. This pizza is a wonderful blend of house-made pesto, shrimp, mozzarella and goat cheese, mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes.    Large pieces of shrimp decorate the top in abundance.  

Most of this pizza are a big no-no for the doggies although we admit to giving them pieces of pizza crust from time to time.

I understand there's even a doggie menu in the works.

You like your brews? There's plenty of draught brews--Lagers, Pilsners, Wheat beers, Malty, Hoppy, Belgian and inspired. Don't worry if you want wine. They have reds and whites as well as a few specialty drinks.

Just because the restaurant is dog-friendly, remember not everything on the menu is dog-friendly. Beer, liquor and wine (grapes and raisins as well) should never be on a dog's menu. Just as a warning, we want to remind readers that chocolate, avocado, garlic, onions, coffee, tea (caffeine), milk-based products, sweets, fat and bones, salt, yeast dough, and spicy foods.

You can feed them lean meat, apples, bananas and watermelon, carrots, green beans, zucchini, white rice and pasta, and chicken. Or you can always bring their favorite chews and a peanut-butter-filled Kong or something to preoccupy them when they aren't being admired or they get tired of playing with the ice cubes. 

Rock & Brews Garden on Main is located at 143 Main Street in El Segundo. Hours are Mondays-Fridays, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Saturdays, 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. and Sundays, 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.  For more information call (310) 615-9890 or for reservations, the food menu and the beer menu, visit their website.

The gauntlet of good grammar

Learn how to write English well and you'll soon be able to discern the racist bullies from the mere and generic bullies. Nothing drives a racist crazier and into raging hysteria faster than having their superiority challenged.

Throw down the gauntlet of grammar.

Consider the nastigram sent by someone named James Wasser. I wrote a few articles about the police officer who shot a dog in Hawthorne.

• Viral video incites mob mentality threats of violence
• Police kill dogs: A Tale of Two Cities
• Police shoot, kill dog in Hawthorne

Apparently James Wasser disagrees with what I wrote. Instead of writing in the comments section, he sends me a personal email with the subject line: "youre a horrible writer."

His message? "you write like a child. Ive blocked google results from examiner.com due to your garbage articles."

Just how many errors do you see and does your child compose better emails? I hope your child does compose better emails and has a better understanding of Netiquette, but I'm not sure at what age one learns to capitalize the first letter of the first word in a sentence. Is that first grade? I admit I sometimes channel my inner five year old. My husband will attest that happens, perhaps too often. 

One's inner child can help with such things as language learning. My Japanese language professor at UCLA told us it was a kindness to correct people's language errors. How could I resist?

Wasser quickly shows that he's really a racist underneath all that lack of sophistication by his reply: "Did you learn the English language as a child in your foreign land? "

Do you think he also uses that quaint phrase "You speak English good" or "You speak really good English" when he attempts to pick up a non-WASPY person for reasons of racist romance?

Language can be a weapon. Learn English well (not good). That will drive the racists into a hysterical rage which will probably leave you and your friends laughing. 

I don't think when people disagree with Leonard Maltin's writing they intimate that English isn't his native language. That also probably never happened to Roger Ebert (except in South Africa where he was speaking and writing American and not English).

When I was learning to debate in Japanese, we were told to say things like "this is just my opinion" or "that's interesting that you believe that, however" or "that may be so, but" and yet when I was watching an American debate camp the goal seemed to be humiliate your opponent. Isn't that in part like a bully culture? You could see the bully culture at work when people were calling for the death of three to four officers over the shooting by one officer of a dog. That makes so much sense. Ask that the police put more value on the life of an animal such as a dog and yet devaluate the human life. Four human lives for the life of one dog.

Don't threaten just the officer that shot the gun, but the two other officers who were there and didn't make or encourage the decision and then add in the public information officer (Scott Swain). There is nothing like international hysteria. One has to appreciate the thoroughness of the mob when they decided to include the Glendale Police Department and Swain's Art Supply store in Glendale. I guess they thought Los Angeles was a small town and all things Swain must be related? 

Mob violence and death threats are part of a bully culture and could be considered domestic terrorism. We might have done away with the lynch mobs in Los Angeles, but we still have a culture of violence here (e.g. the victory mob violence after a Laker championship) and obviously the culture of violence exists in the world at large and online. 

I believe the bully culture begins with a lack of respect and with attempts to intimidate much in the way James Wasser attempted to intimidate me by insulting me instead of attempting to express his disagreement with my views and respecting mine. Because he so easily indulged in a racist twist, one understands that he is the kind of person who doesn't respect the humanity of people of different color and ethnicity.

The concept of respecting another's opinion isn't just something I learned in my Japanese debate class. I learned it also in a University of California community program for gardeners. We were told that we only spoke for ourselves and we respected everyone's opinion. How would that be so bad or do people really prefer this kind of hysterical rage where one threatens art stores in one city because of an incident in another city?

My mother was right when she said choose your friends well. Wasser, I feel sorry for your friends. As for those much more fortunate than Wasser's friends, when you are troubled by the haters, throw down the gauntlet of good grammar. As people become more hysterically mad, as they begin to foam at the mouth in a racist or sexist rage, the exchange can become more amusing. Once they use the race card, the sexist pig card or the threat of violence bully card, you have won. Take your bow, leave them burning with their ridiculous hate and you can have a good laugh. 

My mother was also right about name calling which in college I learned was argumentum ad hominem or a logical fallacy. Mr. Wasser, like many readers, feels that by attacking me personally he is attacking my arguments. Yet what is there for one to defend or refute when one isn't clear on what Wasser disputes? He wins the argument, he seems to think, by making none? 

So, dear reader, don't get angry and start name-calling. Or if one must be name calling say something interesting like a Dorothy Parker or an Evelyn Waugh. With Wasser, there was nothing left to do but throw down the grammar gauntlet to give a verbal slap in the face of racism. 

Johnny Depp, Tonto and Native American culture: Who decides the real and the fake?

If Johnny Depp believes he's Native American, then is that more important than if he actually is or not? And does the exact percentage make him more or less Native American? How much does that matter for the movie "The Lone Ranger"?

• My review of "The Lone Ranger"

I ask this as someone who has been challenged as being East Asian American enough by other East Asian Americans, specifically Japanese Americans because I didn't measure up to their prejudices of how a Japanese American should act. Oddly enough, I was only faced with these accusations when I left my native San Diego and moved to Los Angeles and Orange County. 

I am 100 percent Japanese ethnicity, but for some, including my ex-husband and former in-laws, that wasn't enough. There are other East Asian Americans who had earlier attempted to delineate what was true and false (e.g. Frank Chin and the editors behind "Aiieeee! An Anthology of Asian-American Writers").

Depp's assertion that he was part Native American comes long before he was cast on Tonto. According to Ethnicelebs.com, Depp made this claim first in 2002. That was the same year that shooting for the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie began.

It should be noted that Depp probably has little way of proving that he is Native American. Not all Native Americans have been tested and testing that may prove membership will not necessarily distinguish specific tribe membership.

According to a 2006 Slate Magazine article about genealogical testing:

Admixture testing works best in groups like African-Americans, whose ancestors in Africa and Europe lived far from each other. Most of the ancestry of today's African-Americans can be traced to West or Central Africa, with a minority from other parts of the continent. (Gates' family is a bit exceptional in terms of origin.)

But for other groups things can get a lot more complicated. Many amateur genealogists are interested in whether they might have a Cherokee ancestor, for example. And for some people, admixture tests can give a relatively accurate answer about Native-American ancestry. But other people, including Greeks and Ashkenazi Jews, may have "Native American affinity," according to the tests, even if they and their ancestors have never been to America. As far as anthropologists know, there were no lost tribes connecting Greeks, Jews, and ancient Americans. So, maybe this "Native American affinity" reflects the scattering of alleles by prehistoric Asian nomads to the ancestors of Greeks and Jews as well as to American Indians. Maybe the SNPs that they share gave these groups a leg up in fighting diseases.

There another point that the Ethnicelebs brings up. Depp seems to have African ethnicity in his background. I had heard that during less enlightened times during American history, people hid their African heritage by claiming American Indian heritage instead. In any case, according to Ethnicelebs, Depp has both African American (3/2048) and Native American ancestry (1/2048 Powhatan Native American descent).

If Depp's claims of ancestry are true, it wouldn't be enough for him to be considered Native American, but that 3/2048 would have, in a different era, been enough to have him considered black. Yet there is another problem within the Native American population. Native American populations mixed with white and African immigrants. White and Native American intermarriages have occurred since the 1700s. Yet to be an official member, an individual must have 1/4 or more ancestry within a federally recognized tribe. Yet who is recognized and who is not?

In researching this article, I was surprised to discover that Rosa Parks was also part Native American. The Wikipedia article on Black Native Americans notes that " African Americans are using DNA testing to find out more about all their ancestry. Native American identity has historically been based on culture, not just biology." Further, Native American groups have excluded Freedmen from membership based on the early 20th-century Dawes Rolls (Cherokee freedmen controversy).

As I mentioned above, I am 100 percent Japanese by ethnicity, but most people will not guess that I am Japanese American. The natural state of my hair (wavy) doesn't help. This and other factors has led other Japanese people in Japan to consider my second and third cousins in Japan as not Japanese.  Traditionally, wavy hair was stigmatized in Japan. So I might not be able to pass as Japanese and if I were an actor, I might not be cast as Japanese. I might be cast as Chinese or Filipina. 

I'm also not Buddhist, Taoist or a follower of Shinto which might also make me seem less "real" Japanese. Still in Japan, my relatives embraced me and pointed out characteristics that made me part of the family. This was particularly true for my father's side of the family. I remember this when someone tries to tell me otherwise and pejoratively label me a banana. What gives that person the right to tell me s/he knows how a true East Asian ethnic or Japanese ethnic should act?

My friend once told me that he believed he was full Chinese from Vietnam, but was traumatized to learn that he was part Vietnamese, particularly since his father looked down on the Vietnamese. So just who are we: What we are or what we believe we are? And just how much is enough?

If Depp isn't Native American enough either culturally or by blood is one issue, then the other issue should be can he pass? What about Iron Eyes Cody who passed despite being of Italian (Sicily) ancestry? Cody lived his life as a Native American and married a Native American woman. He was also honored by the Native American community in 1995 despite his lack of ancestral ties to the Native American community.

The Irish, Comanche and Cherokee Micki Free, a Native American musician.

So much has been made of the bird in Tonto's hat. The painting that inspired the make-up has a crow, but not in the Native American's hat because he isn't wearing one. Fashionista know that bird in hat are old hat--something that Marie Antoinette popularized. According to the blog by jmongeon, women in the 1900s adopted this fashion long after Marie Antoinette had lost her head in 1793.

So much has been made of the bird in Tonto's hat. The painting that inspired the make-up has a crow, but not in the Native American's hat because he isn't wearing one. Fashionista know that bird in hat are old hat--
Actually, I've also seen a few Hollywood hats off to Tippi Hedren and Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" in West Hollywood during the 1990s. Bjork may have had a swan dress in 2001, but other women in the 2000s have re-visited the bird or bird nest hat. What could be more steampunkish than re-adopting the stuffed animal hat of yester-year for a bit of high fashion today? That model with the bird nest and wings was from a 2006 fashion show.

Now, I'm not saying that the Native Americans copied the fashion of White American women. Yet we need to ask: Did Native Americans wear bird in their hair? Apparently some did as seen in these photos of Crow (Apsaroke) Native Americans from the past.
See these old photographs of Crow (Apsaroke) Native Americans.

One of the commentators, Sonny Skyhawk, has passed for Native Hawaiian and Mexican so that was reasonable enough for him. He was, by his own logic, taking away a job from a Native Hawaiian. Those Mexican roles are easy to rationalize because many Mexicans are mestizo or part Native American, even if the mixing was a long time ago, just as seems to have been the case with Johnny Depp ancestry. In a different era, Mexican actor Ricardo Montalban played Native American roles as well as East Asian (a real stretch). 

The movie "The Lone Ranger" had a supervisor and Depp was adopted into an Comanche family. At least from the perspective of one recognized Native American (William "Two-Raven" Voelker) and then one person who perceives himself as Native American (Depp), the movie portrayed Native Americans in an acceptable fashion. But like everything else, that's just an opinion of two different people.

• My review of "The Lone Ranger"