What if It Blows Up?
The wasteful fantasy known as “Walk on Wilshire” may be dead – even though its advocates continue their public weeping – but interesting information about the boondoggle continues to to come to light – information that doesn’t put Fullerton in a good light. WoW is yet another Fullerton cautionary tale.
One issue about WoW never discussed in public, was the Mulberry Street Ristorante parklet’s violation of the standards of Southern California Edison regarding setbacks around their transformer vaults.
Oops.
It turns out there’s an Edison tranformer vault in the street right in front of the “ristorante,” and right where their “parklet” was built. Here’s the plan for the parklet. The vault is dead center in the middle of it.
The problem popped up in October, 2023 when an Edison inspector discovered a problem: Edison requires a 15ft set back around the outside of their concrete vault, free of construction.
Oops.
Now, we can’t tell what that set back would look like without a sketch. So let’s make one!
The off-limits area inside the black square essentially eradicates the poor parklet. Oops!
Edison sent Mulberry Street a couple warning letters, the second, repeating the issues, in December, 2023.
Mulberry St. Ristorante replied to both these missives, saying more or the same thing each time.
Saying fuck you to Edison isn’t a very smart thing to do if you happen to use electricity, as we will soon see. Be sure to notice how Brandon Bevins, Mulberry’s Manager, also advises Edison to talk to the City of Fullerton!
This correspondence triggered a series of subtly urgent communications between the City Engineer and Edison at the end of 2023. Even our highly paid City Manager, Eric Levitt, was somehow dragged into this low-grade stupidity – all because the City staff who “managed” this project never thought to talk to Edison in the first place.
The tenor of the correspondence and the subsequent meetings was polite, but somewhat stiff since SCE had zero intention of looking the other way. In fact, SCE notified Mulberry Street that they were going turn off the juice to the whole property on January 19, 2024 sans compliance. So Bevins, who must have been panicking, tried to scare the City into desperate action.
Bevins was plenty pissed, and suggested that the we pay the costs for his parklet – just north of $40,000! So now the City had another self-inflicted wound. But wait. Mulberry wasn’t in the clear, either.
In correspondence from December 2022 the City (somebody named Matt Laninovich) erroneously tells Bevins that their parklet can cover the SCE vault so long as there is a hinged door in the parklet platform for access. Of course he pulled that out of his ass; but he also wisely informs Bevins to consult with Edison. Had Bevins done so he could have saved everybody time and trouble, including himself. Nevertheless, the City is now a full partner in a SNAFU that was completely avoidable.
A resolution of sorts was achieved on January 24, 2024 when Edison agreed to let the parklet remain if seating on it were limited to an area outside a 15ft radius from the perimeter of the iron manhole in the middle of the vault. The manhole would have to be reinforced (in case it might blow off in an explosion, presumably) and the vault had to be accessible from the Wilshire Avenue side.
This resolution doesn’t look too promising for Mulberry Street that also had to pay for that additional manhole restraint. Look. There’s hardly any room for seating left.
Was the parklet enlarged to make it actually work? Did Edison finally look the other way? Documents acquired from a Public Act Request don’t inform us: at this point information provided by the City about this issue ends. Was there more? Who knows?
One thing I do know is that images of the operating parklet from last year show tables within the no-go zone.
How much risk were the patrons who used the Mulberry Street parklet exposed to for the past year? How much risk if Edison had not spotted the issue to begin with? I don’t know, but Edison has safety rules for a reason. The explosion of the transformer in Huntington Beach in 2019 gives us some indication of what can go wrong, and the consequences of that episode were actually considered lucky.
Walk on Wilshire. A tail-wagging-the-dog gift that keeps on giving. The thing is a moot issue now, fortunately. But if anybody feels like asking good questions about this or other city-created public hazards, I’ll bet my Nevada ranch they won’t get good answers.
No we’ll never get a good answer.
The City and its $300,000 milquetoast Manager were desperate to keep the only “parklet” licensee going that they were perfectly willing to ignore public safety if Edison would only let them.
It was all about making the Waste on Wilshire look like a viable, going concern which of course it never was, Yep, that tail was wagging the dog, alright.
Makes you wonder what other embarrassments never come to light. Is it just the tip of the iceberg?
No no no, this is Bushala’s fault. This has to be misinformation. Sharon Kennedy said so!
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU TURN A STREET INTO SOMETHING IT ISN’T SUPPOSED TO BE PERMANENTLY.
Change Management 101.
Why do the Bushali Brothers hate everything good in Fullerton?
Because building a porch on a public road wasn’t bad enough.
The knucklehead is a Q.S.D. I wonder if we pay him extra for that. Bet so.
There are almost always unintended consequences when government employees try to play developer and there are no consequences.
In the old days we had Terry Galvin and then Gary Chapulsky.
Now we have the “economic development” people whose efforts can’t even pay for themselves.
Haha. Without the public record request this would never have come out.
We need to know if the City in the end just ignored enforcing the mandate to keep their only parklet alive.
I love the fact that the City Manager had to get involved to save the Wank on Wilshire. Public safety be damned. WE MUST SAVE WoW!!!!
Welcome to the real-world folks! Regular maintenance is indeed crucial to prevent potential hazards from happening. The incident at Old World Village in Huntington Beach https://www.fullertonsfuture.org/2025/a-public-service-announcement-from-ffff/ is a stark reminder of what can happen when transformers in locations with difficult access to perform routine maintenance is overlooked. In Mulberry’s case, even if SCE wanted to access their vault there were tables and chairs all around sitting on Mulberry’s park-let.
Just to remind folks, in October 2019, a series of transformer explosions occurred during an Oktoberfest celebration, injuring five people. The explosions were caused by a malfunction in the underground electrical vault which highlighted the importance of easy access for regular inspections and maintenance. Not that long ago, a similar SCE vault located in Amerige Ave. just one block south of Mulberry’s vault had a close encounter. Had it not been for a smart nearby business owner notified SCE after smelling something burning near the vault. Turns out this transformer-vault was days away from a major explosion. And to think this subject was NEVER brought up at not even one public meetings is EXTREEMLY troubling.
Talk’n bout the spirit of the Law, Zhara, I know you read this Blog, you said so during a recent public hearing. I know you don’t understand much of anything, but let me help you out, you need phycological help.
The restaurant obviously knew, and let their patrons be at risk. Unbelievable.
Even for Fullerton, this is over the top.
Playing Russian Roulette every time someone ate out there.
It’s disgusting, but sadly not surprising.
Imagine how many of thousands of people it would have killed or maimed if it went off. Oh wait……..
Oh……So that’s why it always appeared to be for the benefit of Mulberry. Because it was for the benefit of Mulberry. Should have opened the street up immediately after the first notice from Edison.
Notice Mulberry’s owner, Brandon, did not show up to the final meeting on 1-21-25? He must have realized the gig was up since Bushala’s attorney did a PRA that the city clerk FINALLY published on the DAY OF THE COUNCIL MEETING (three months after the PRA was submitted. Thanks City staff, NOT).
The information discovered in the PRA spelled out the dangers of placing tables and chairs on top of SCE’s transformer vault!
BOYCOTT MULBERRY, I am!
Tell more. How do you know such things?
Haven’t heard from The Fullerton Shadow in a while. Welcome back onto the grid! Heck, the last time I remember you being mentioned was in an Orange County Register article seeking opinions on some real estate transaction. Unless I’m mistaken and it was on another subject.
Another person we haven’t heard from in a while is Mr. John Hoogerius. He’s probably been censured by his family for going off the deep end. What happened, J.H.? Do the facts the 4F blog continue to roll out scare you? According to Josh Newman, 4F is the place to go if you really wanna find out what’s really happening in Fullerton.
That was my husband.
The odds of an electrical transformer spontaneously exploding and causing injuries is very low. Yes, it does happen but it’s very rare and much less so with above-ground cabinets versus vaults. SCE is hyper sensitive right now to any whiff of liability plus they technically hold an easement for that piece of equipment and they don’t want a bunch of crap sitting on it.
Thanks, Young Tom Edison.