The Brief

How much would you pay for a bona fide bite of New York City?

That question will be tested this Saturday, June 29, when West Hollywood’s Bar Next Door hosts the Lower East Side pastrami institution Katz's Deli — the oldest deli in New York City — as it serves up its famed pastrami sandwiches for the L.A. crowd.

I hope you’re sitting down for this next part:

A whole sandwich will cost $45 and $25 for a half.

About that price...

Bar Next Door owner Lawrence Longo and his team are going all out to bring a genuine New York experience to L.A. They’re even flying out three Katz’s employees to prepare the sandwiches on site, boiling, slicing, and serving the pastrami on its signature rye, slathered with the classic brown mustard and tucked alongside half-sour pickles.

(If you do the math, it somewhat explains the high price; the sandwich normally goes for $27.45 at Katz's in homebase in New So if you think about it's still cheaper than getting on a flight to NYC yourself.)

It’s all for a special occasion — the bar’s first anniversary — and they wanted to do something big. Longo credits his business partner, Kara Rosenblum, who is from Brooklyn. She had the idea and immediately started making calls to make it happen.

The Katz's deli spread, available on Saturday, June 29, at Bar Next Door, along with a Coors Banquet Lager and a "Dirty Mixed Brine Martini Shot" with vodka, pickle, olive, and pepperoncini brine.

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Courtesy of Bar Next Door

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“We thought bringing Katz’s to the bar would be cool,” Longo said, noting that the bar’s themed design will be familiar to any NYC deli regular. “It looks like a diner, so we thought the pastrami would look so good at the bar, and it would be a cool thing to do for the L.A. community.”

The event will mark Katz's second official visit to Los Angeles, the first being at the outdoor food festival Family Fest in 2023. (No doubt, countless unofficial visits have taken place with pastramis-on-rye smuggled aboard cross-country flights into LAX.)

Will Angelenos pay the eye-watering price? It depends on how desperate you are for a real taste of NYC and how much Katz's mystique means to you (after all, it's the same deli where Meg Ryan acted out her famous scene in When Harry Met Sally. Yep, that one).

And it does come with a humungous amount of meat that will keep you going for days. But if $45 makes you spit out your coffee at the breakfast table, you can always head to Langers for a #19 instead for around $25. That’s damn fine pastrami too, so no shade either way. 

Grab a slice afterward

In addition to Bar Next Door, Longo also owns Prince Street Pizza ... located right next door. If you aren’t familiar with it, Prince Street is another New York institution that has gradually expanded locations throughout the West Coast over the past few years. It is known for the hefty square slices overflowing with its signature cupped pepperoni.

At Bar Next Door in West Hollywood, enjoy your Katz's pastrami sandwich in the interior, which has an art deco-meets-haute diner feel.

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Fred Licht

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Courtesy of Bar Next Door

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A specialty cocktail combo will also be served on Saturday: a Coors Banquet Lager paired with a "Dirty Mixed Brine Martini" shot made with vodka plus Katz’s signature pickles, peperoncini brine, and an olive. The beer and shot combo will be $16.

Postmates will co-sponsor the daylong event from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sandwiches will be available for delivery or pick-up within a 5-10 mile radius of Bar Next Door. The link to order isn't working now, but will go live Saturday at 11 a.m. So, set that reminder if you plan on going.

Topline:

The case: In September, the city settled a lawsuit brought forward by two brothers in their 70s who said they suffered serious injuries after an LAPD officer crashed into their car. Days before the $18 million settlement was reached, lawyers for the brothers said Feldstein Soto called an expert witness testifying for the plaintiffs and “attempted to ingratiate herself with him and asked him to make a contribution to her political campaign,” according to a sworn declaration to the court by the plaintiffs’ attorney, Robert Glassman.

The response: Feldstein Soto did not respond to an interview request. Her spokesperson said the settlement “had nothing to do” with the expert witness. Her campaign manager told LAist the city attorney had been making a routine fundraising call and did not know the person had a role in the case, nor that there were pending requests for her office to pay him fees.

What Jurado says: In a statement to LAist, Jurado said she wants to “make sure that the city’s legal leadership is guided by integrity and accountability, especially when their choices affect public trust, civic rights and the city’s limited resources."

What’s next: The motion needs to go through a few committees before reaching the full City Council. If it passes, the motion calls for the city attorney to “report to council in closed session within 45 days regarding the ethics breach violation and give updates to the City Council."

Every year in Santa Ana, Luis Cantabrana turns the front of his home into an elaborate altar in honor of La Virgen de Guadalupe that draws hundreds of visitors.

Along the front of the house, the multi-colored altar is filled with lights, flowers and a stained-glass tapestry behind a sculpture of the Lady of Guadalupe. Cantabrana’s roof also is lit up with the green, white and red lights that spell out “Virgen de Guadalupe” and a cross.

Visitors are welcomed with music and the smell of roses as they celebrate the saint, but this year’s gathering comes after a dark year for immigrant communities.

Luis Cantabrana stands in front of the stunning altar he built in front of his home in honor of La Virgen de Guadalupe. Every year, his display draws hundreds of visitors.

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Destiny Torres

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LAist

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Why do they celebrate? 

In 1513, the Virgin Mary appeared before St. Juan Diego between Dec. 9 and Dec. 12, asking him to build a church in her honor. Her image — a brown-skinned woman wearing a green veil with her hands together in prayer and an angel at her feet — miraculously appeared on his cloak.

To celebrate in Santa Ana, worshippers gathered late-night Wednesday and in the very early hours Dec. 12 to pray the rosary, sing hymns and celebrate the saint.

Cantabrana has hosted worshippers at his home for 27 years — 17 in Santa Ana.

The altar started out small, he said, and over the years, he added a fabric background, more lights and flowers (lots and lots of flowers).

“It started with me making a promise to la Virgen de Guadalupe that while I had life and a home to build an altar, that I would do it,” Cantabrana said. “Everything you see in photos and videos is pretty, but when you come and see it live, it's more than pretty. It's beautiful.”

The Santa Ana home's elaborate altar in honor of La Virgen de Guadalupe draws hundreds of visitors each year.

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Destiny Torres

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LAist

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Gathering in a time of turmoil 

Many also look to the Lady of Guadalupe for protection, especially at a time when federal enforcement has rattled immigrant communities.

“People don’t want to go to work, they don’t want to take their kids to school, but the love we have for our Virgen de Guadalupe,” Cantabrana said. “We see that la Virgen de Guadalupe has a lot of power, and so we know immigration [enforcement] won’t come here.”

Margarita Lopez of Garden Grove has been visiting the altar for three years with her husband. She’s been celebrating the Virgencita since she was a young girl. Honoring the saint is as important now as ever, she said.

“We ask, and she performs miracles,” Lopez said.

Claudia Tapia, a lifelong Santa Ana resident, said the Virgin Mary represents strength.

“Right now, with everything going on, a lot of our families [have] turned and prayed to the Virgen for strength during these times,” Tapia said. “She's a very strong symbol of Mexican culture, of unity, of faith and of resilience.”

See it for yourself

The shrine will stay up into the new year on the corner of Broadway and Camile Street.

California’s unemployment agency kept paying cellphone bills for 4 1/2 years without checking whether its workers actually were using the devices.

That’s how it racked up $4.6 million in fees for mobile devices its workers were not using, according to a new state audit detailing wasteful spending at several government agencies.

The Employment Development Department’s excessive cellphone bills date to the COVID-19 pandemic, when it shifted call center employees to remote work and faced pressure to release benefits to millions of suddenly unemployed Californians.

It acquired 7,224 cellphones and wireless hotspots by December 2020. State auditors analyzed 54 months of invoices since then and found half the devices were unused for at least two years, 25% were unused for three years and 99 of them were never used at all.

The investigation, which auditors opened after receiving a tip, identified 6,285 devices that were unused for at least four consecutive months, and said the department spent $4.6 million on monthly service fees for them.

From the beginning, the department had about 2,000 more cellphones than call center employees, according to the audit. The gap widened over time after the pandemic ended and the department’s staffing returned to its normal headcount.

As of April, the audit said the department had 1,787 unemployment call center employees, but was paying monthly service fees for 5,097 mobile devices.

“Although obtaining the mobile devices during COVID-19 may have been a good idea to serve the public, continuing to pay the monthly service fees for so many unused devices, especially post-COVID-19, was wasteful,” the audit said.

Department officials told auditors they were unaware of the spending, but auditors pointed to regular invoices from Verizon that showed which phones were not being used.

“We would have expected EDD management to have reconsidered the need to pay the monthly service fees for so many devices that had no voice, message, or data usage,” the audit said.

The unemployment department began acting on the auditors’ findings in April, when it canceled service plans for 2,825 devices. It has since implemented a policy to terminate service plans for devices that go unused for 90 days.

The California state auditor highlighted the mobile devices in its regular report on “improper activities by state agencies and employees.” The audit also showed that the California Air Resources Board overpaid an employee who was on extended leave as he prepared to retire by $171,000.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.