Eagle Rock Brewery is being called to go through yet another costly public hearing to continue its operations in the city of Los Angeles. The Eagle Rock Brewery was established in 2009 and has been an upstanding business that employs many locals and supports multiple community causes annually. They have been in operation for five years without any complaints or problems, and in that time have gone through three public hearings costing over $20,000, just to get the city’s permission to operate! That is a tremendous added expense for a small business to bear when their funds need to be used for operational expenses (i.e. paying employees, business/city/state/federal taxes, licensing fees, utilities, etc.).

There have been numerous articles in local, state, and national publications about the difficulty of operating a business in the city of LA and how the city is one of the least friendly cities to small businesses, and this situation illustrates precisely why. You can be certain that this is not the only case where the city of Los Angeles is abusing it’s small business owners. 

The craft beer industry has been experiencing explosive growth in the past several years, and the majority of breweries starting up in the Los Angeles area avoid the city of Los Angeles, rather going to surrounding cities that welcome them and incentivize them to start businesses there. With this kind of abuse toward one of the first production breweries to open in the city limits of Los Angeles in decades, it’s no wonder.

If the city of Los Angeles continues to lose small businesses, subsequent tax dollars and employment opportunities to surrounding cities, the repercussions will severely limit any kind of progress for the city.

Keeping a small business open is a challenging enough task. By bringing awareness of this issue to the community, Eagle Rock Brewery hopes to eventually stop Los Angeles from forcing it, and other small businesses, to pay excessive fees just to exist in the city.