Save the CELL
Beloved Mission community space in danger

By Cassi Feldman

July 6 was just your average night at CELLspace. The six-year-old arts collective was hosting a benefit for Olin, a local youth group, and more than a hundred teenagers had shown up to dance, chat, and flirt. Members of the Norteños and Sureños, rival Mission District gangs, were in attendance and could easily have started a brawl, but they didn't. The mood was positive, and everyone seemed intent on keeping it that way.

Well, almost everyone. Around 10 p.m., the San Francisco police showed up and asked to speak to the person in charge.

Kirsten Henricksen was house manager that night and met with the cops outside. They informed her that the CELL didn't have the proper city permit to host such an event. Henricksen convinced them to let the party run its course and promised to "keep a tight lid on it," she said.

But that night marked the beginning of a much bigger problem for CELLspace, one that's plagued nightclubs for years and is now bleeding into the arts community.

All over the city, venues are struggling to hold fun, meaningful events without irritating their neighbors – or the police. Responding to these tensions, Sup. Mark Leno recently helped create an Entertainment Commission to oversee permit disputes starting next year.

CELLspace members knew the San Francisco Police Department had been cracking down on clubs, but they didn't expect to feel the heat. They had already been planning structural improvements to legalize their occupancy in what used to be a giant warehouse on Bryant Street.

Now that the police have gotten involved, the CELL also needs a place-of-entertainment permit, which requires far more work. Until it receives one, the group isn't allowed to hold ticketed events for more than 49 people.

It's a tricky predicament because the CELL relies heavily on large events for rent money (recent successes included Circus Contraption and a reading by Dave Eggers, Michael Chabon, and David Byrne). While it has a grant to upgrade the building and its rent is paid through August, there isn't much money in the bank.

Even the police admit that none of this would have happened if the dance hadn't been for teens. "Permitting is way down on my list of priorities," Captain Gregory Corrales of the Mission Police Station said. "What happened is they kind of changed the type of events that they were allowing to take place there. You can't throw a dance with kids under 18 without a certain number of chaperones; you can't mix [kids] with adults." And, he added, you can't play hip-hop.

That doesn't make sense to members of Olin, the group that organized the dance. "Nobody had any weapons – everyone was frisked at the door," said one representative, who did not want to be named. "The cops just don't want young people having dances." As a result, he said, many art spaces are reluctant to host youth events, particularly for youth of color. "When the CELL opened their doors to us, it was a great help, a huge resource."

Those doors first opened in 1996 when a group of local artists decided to share their talents with the community. Since then the CELL (which stands for Collectively Explorative Learning Labs) has become a mecca for just about anyone with a creative bone in their body: break-dancers, puppeteers, sculptors, roller skaters, and poets have all found a home in the 10,000-square-foot facility.

The CELL helps these folks do what they love (more than a third of its annual $290,000 operating budget goes straight to artists), and in return they teach classes and volunteer. "It's almost like the KPFA of art spaces," said Jonathan Youtt, one of the CELL's cofounders. "They rely on listener support; we rely directly on people recognizing the importance of this place and lending a hand."

In that spirit, groups such as ODC/San Francisco, the Lab, Venue 9, Intersection for the Arts, and La Peña Cultural Center have already offered to hold fundraisers to help out. The CELL also has some money-making plans of its own, including a regular Sunday morning art-flea-farmers market starting in September.

Youtt hopes the Entertainment Commission will consider revising the police code to create a special category for groups like his. "How this gets resolved with CELL is a strong indication of how it will be resolved for all other spaces," he said.

In the meantime, the CELL is banking on the energy of its members and volunteers. "We should look at this as an opportunity," Youtt told the collective at a recent meeting. "It can only make us stronger."

E-mail Cassi Feldman at cassi@sfbg.com. Go to www.cellspace.org or call (415) 648-7562 for more information, to make a donation, or to volunteer.