By Olin Ericksen
Staff Writer

November 30 -- During the second busiest shopping time of the year, vending carts were nowhere to be found on the Third Street Promenade, something that hasn't happened in 16 years.

From the 13th to the 28th of this month, the shopping mecca was entirely devoid of the rolling money makers after the City ordered the old vendors to close up shop to make room for new vendors and a new management company, Provenzano Resources Inc. (PRI)

When the new carts were rolled out Tuesday, it was a week late and the venders had missed the extended Thanksgiving weekend when merchants look to make a sizable chunk of their holiday profits.

"There was a delay in getting the carts out there," said Andrew Thomas, who is in charge of the cart program as operations manager for the Bayside District Corporation, which oversees the Downtown. "They were due out there about a week ago."

Cart operator Brynne Zaniboni befriends Japanese tourists on her first day on the job. (Photos by Ann K. Williams)

A six-week extension granted to the old vendors in October made it difficult to clean the storage space and test the new carts in time for the scheduled opening November 21, PRI and Bayside officials said.

The two weeks offline hurt old and new venders alike.

The old vendors, who were set to go out of business, argue they could have used the extended Thanksgiving weekend -- which usually generates at least 30 percent more sales -- to liquidate their merchandise.

New vendors missed out on an estimated $120,000 in Thanksgiving weekend sales split among 22 carts, or an average of nearly $1,500 per cart per day, according to vendors who have worked the Promenade for years.

"Because the old tenants got an extension, my tenants couldn't open, and it harmed my merchants," said Deborah Kravitz, president of PRI. "They lost out on what's the second busiest set of shopping days of the year."

For some of the old vendors, the decision by PRI and the City to keep the Promenade clear of carts entirely may have cost them even more.

"I lost my business, my only livelihood and now I'm unemployed," said Maya Lieberman, who sold holiday-themed merchandise for the past six months on the Promenade and is now stuck with nearly $7,000 in retail items she said she can't sell.

The turn of events has devastated her financially, Leiberman said.

"I'm thinking about moving back home to Israel," she said. "There's nothing left for me here."

Neither side has ruled out taking their cases to court to recover profits lost over the weekend.

"I won't comment on that at this time," Kravitz said.

Some of the 13 vendors who were moved off the Promenade in November have said they may sue PRI for a breach of contract.

The vendors -- who were invited to apply for leases under the new management -- are also charging that the company rejected their applications in retaliation for speaking to City officials who were helping craft the new cart program.

An ongoing investigation into the retaliation claim was launched by the City Attorney in October. In the meantime, the City Council directed staff to estimate the cost of terminating the contract with PRI, with or without cause.

Daniel Gannon and Aneeta Saagar are just two of the former vendors who are considering filing a lawsuit against PRI.

"We have said that suing is not our intention," said Saagar, who with her husband owned and operated two carts on the Promenade. "We wanted to be heard, we wanted justice.

"But, you know, now, I personally would like to sue, because we've lost so much," she said.

Saagar said she may move her private pediatric practice out of Santa Monica and her husband is considering leaving the state because of the ordeal.

Gannon said he believes he has the strongest grounds for a lawsuit against PRI.

He prepared a sworn declaration, kept correspondence and says he has a license agreement with PRI that proves that his application for a new lease under the new management company was accepted in writing, only to be denied days later.

The rejection came shortly after PRI found out that he and a group of vendors met with City staff member Miriam Mack to complain about merchandising fees and other terms of the new contract they felt were unreasonable.

"If I decide to sue, I believe I have a case," Gannon said.

PRI officials deny the claims of retaliation and say they were perfectly within their contractual rights to turn down the vendors' applications to stay on the Promenade.

"This is nothing more than a case of sour grapes," Kravitz said. "The same tenants who wanted an extension are the same tenants who got rejected."

The decision by her company and the City to keep the Promenade clear of both new and old vendors over the long lucrative weekend was unfortunate, but unavoidable, Kravitz said.

An extension for the old vendors to stay on the Promenade had already prevented PRI from cleaning the storage spaces and testing their carts before their launch, which was scheduled for November 21, she said.

"They had to be cleaned, and it's a bad thing we had to be doing it on Thanksgiving weekend, but that's how it was," said Kravitz, who said they had to do three weeks of cleaning work in one week on the commissary and in a parking garage used to store carts.

"The storage spaces hadn't been cleaned in 15 years and these are very, very expensive carts that were custom built in Texas with custom displays, and we needed to have a place to store them," said Kravitz. "I wasn't about to have my employees in there, breathing in the dust in those conditions."

Testing the carts after hours or before they opened and allowing old vendors to stay on the Promenade was not an option, Kravitz said.

"We had to test the carts in daylight hours, during the actual business hours," she said."Besides, the old merchants got almost a six-week extension, and they were supposed to be out of there November 1st.

"These merchants have had 11 months to liquidate," she said. "To have allowed them to stay any longer would have harmed our merchants."

Lidia Ozdemir arranges her wares for holiday shoppers.

Bayside District official Thomas, who described the Bayside's role in the new program as the "eyes and ears" for the City, said the City may have been able to keep old vendors on the Promenade through November 29, but not without hardship.

"I suppose they could have gone there after hours to do it," said Thomas. "But then they would have had to deal with late-night permits and it would have been a serious hassle."

Vendors such as Gannon say the Bayside District could have done a better job making the terms of the contract clearer, specifically a clause stating that PRI had to give preference to vendors already on the Promenade.

The City Attorney's office reported there is no supporting evidence that PRI breached the preference clause, but is still looking into claims of retaliation.

Yet Thomas believes the Bayside District -- who some contend was changing management companies to bring in more upscale merchandise -- handled the situation well.

"It's hard to say (the old vendors) got a raw deal when they were invited to be a part of the new program," said Thomas. "It's been known for a long time now that this was coming. It shouldn't have been a surprise for anyone.

"Maybe I'm alone on this, but I think (the Bayside) did a pretty good job," he said. "There were bumps in the road in how it was handled, but now the new carts are out there now."

City Council member Kevin McKeown -- who is awaiting a much-anticipated staff report on the matter -- had a different take.

"The little guy got screwed here," he said.