Martial Law Declared in Hollywood
Welcome To The 74th Academy Awards

Over the years, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has done its share of laying down the law. This year, in light of the events of September 11th, the sky's the limit - literally. The Academy lobbied the FBI to request a FAA issued no-fly zone over Hollywood on March 24th, the day of the event, and it appropriated a massive 350-man LAPD force to secure the area around the Hollywood & Highland complex in which the Kodak Theater resides. From Metropolitan Transportation Authority Officials shutting down its Hollywood subway stop, to the closing of over eighty local businesses, this year's Oscar presentation is a show of Academy sway on many levels.

For example, item number one on the Academy's slate: red carpet groupies will no longer be allowed to make a grab for popular bleacher seats by camping out days in advance.

This year, the nearly 500 spectators clamoring for the privilege had to fill out an Academy application form. Background checks followed. This new process allowed for an advance "weeding out" of individuals who, during the years that the ceremony was held at the Shrine, disputed security procedures.

Before we look at this year's "adjustments", here's a look back at the 2001, 73rd Academy awards, the last to be held at the Shrine Auditorium and a venue the Academy couldn't wait to escape:

Wednesday, March 22, 2001 - 11a.m.
Overheard: "Honey, Have You Checked Your Blood Pressure?"

Eleven uniformed LAPD officers huddle on the sidewalk, positioned between parked cars and a retaining wall. Heads rhythmically dart in and out of the group to eyeball the subjects. Though their discussion is animated, a second does not pass without surveillance. Eighty feet away is a large group of angry squatters, fanatical about the stake they've claimed and ready to defy the badges.

"I'm going to handcuff myself to this fence!" taunts one, the big one they call Mary Ann.

Another woman, a burly German, begins organizing, gesturing with a tightly rolled up People magazine. "Call zee newzdesks! We must have Fotogra-fie. Zee cameras!"

Members of each camp begin pacing. Dirty looks are thrown. Squatters anxiously look around for spectators, witnesses to the injustices that will no doubt occur when the police move in to oust them.

"Remember Seattle, people!" shouts Mary Ann. "We're taxpayers!"

11:40 a.m.
The retaining wall that a few of the cops now lean on belongs to a grammar school, where the seeds of this unrest have originated. The school's principal has had to deal with these types before. Though she's shown a begrudging tolerance in the past, today she wants them gone, suppressed, removed. She will not have school's routine disturbed or her students inconvenienced. The squatters, she points out, are living in her school bus zone. Public sidewalk or no, the police have a responsibility to remove the trespassers.

12:20 p.m.
Inflatable Couches and Baloney Sandwiches

Some of the squatters have a newsletter; others log on to a web site devoted to their campaign. All are part of an elaborate outfit with a reputation for persistence. They are prepared, with their tents and their provisions, air mattresses, lawn chairs, night lighting, blow-up recliners and remote Internet capabilities.

The LAPD is well aware of the squatters' determination to stay put. The officers also know that these days, especially in this setting, they do not have the media or its opinion-making power on their side. The two sides have clashed before, but the stakes have never been this high nor the mood this sour.

12:50 p.m.
Cop eyes roll when two television news vans arrive and the perfect teeth of advancing reporters shimmer in the sunlight. The squatters ready themselves for the cameras and the attention they're accustomed to. Both sides puff out their chests, straighten their shoulders and fold their arms.

Mary Ann stands out front of her group like Mel Gibson's "Braveheart." From the way she's staring down the police, if someone handed her blue eyeshadow, she'd smear it all over her face and brandish a stick. One of the other squatters, a young Asian woman, opens an SUV nearby and retrieves video equipment to document the forthcoming dispute.

1 p.m.
Overheard: "I promise you a solution within the next two hours."

A liaison appears. The man is swarmed. These people see themselves as refugees, and he knows it. He's been handpicked to bridge the gap between law enforcement and the crusaders. This is the guy who might talk some sense into the extremist measures of "Handcuff" Mary Ann.

Moonlighting LAPD officer, Chris Bergland, wears the mark of the beast: a neck laminate representing the institution the squatters have descended upon.

Like the other cops, he knows with whom he's dealing. He's seen them sleeping next to overflowing trash cans and other refuse. He's watched them get feisty and turn on each other. He's heard their determined voices. He has quoted the rulebook and offered his diplomacy countless times before.

Someone shouts, "There're homeless people all over the place around here and they ain't doin' nuthin' about them! Why hassle us?"

Another chimes in, "Yeah, don't the cops here have something better to do than roust us?"

Bergland has heard this before too. He nods with understanding, but resists responding right away. He announces a meeting with the school's principal. Though he can guarantee "zip", he does promise to specify the needs of the squatters and their vow of no contact with the children.

2 p.m.
Overheard: "At this time we must ask you to collect your things and..."

Anticipating this outcome, the squatters have already taken to the other side of the street, not just moving a few feet away until threatened with arrest, but digging in all over again. They've done this with confidence, too, as hours before a splinter group had secured a permit to camp twenty feet away on the private property of one of the school's neighbors.

The action has abated their setback. The Sergeant confirms to his agitated men that the neighboring frat house has indeed okayed the presence of Camp II. Its hosts have even joined the squatters on their lawn and included them in their extended spring break revelry. The police are powerless, the principal thwarted, and the exiled empowered. Reporters and passersby have watched it all.

3:20 p.m.
Overheard: "This place is a circus."

With a bell's long ring, school is out. Children enter the equation en masse. Across the street at Camp II, Chris Bergland is seen shaking the hands of splinter group members. The school's principal personally guides a school bus driver into an ad-lib loading zone. She is furious at the police. A Lexus SUV illegally parked not far away is raised by the hydraulics of a tow truck.

4:00 p.m.
A camera crew now represents every local news channel. Mary Ann and a police Lieutenant exchange terse words as they cross paths at the residue of Camp I.

Exhausted, a young, female Asian journalist sits in the shade and is given water by a nice young man from one of the news crews. She is visibly upset, but still proud to be a player at such an international hot spot, where media from every part of the world are coming in faster than you can say "Major News Event."

5:10 p.m.
Overheard: "Only four more days of this and we're there!"

The squatters are here to stay, but they didn't come for the frat boys' drinking games. They plan to return to the other side of the street the minute the school is closed and the principal goes home.

Four Days Later: Saturday, March 25th, 2001 - 8 p.m.
The lights from the many news vans flood the usually peaceful if fraternized neighborhood. The hum of fifteen mobile t.v. broadcast trucks fills the air, as does the heavy chop of an LAPD Bell Jet Ranger helicopter.

Just as they'd sworn to do, the squatters have retrenched themselves in their original location at Camp I, and their ranks have tripled. The number of police has also tripled and they've been joined by nearby campus security. But numbers notwithstanding, the law enforcement presence is less felt than before because officers have been dispersed over a mile square area.

Throughout the Camp, squatters can be seen sleeping, playing Clue, greeting onlookers and cameras from their mini-porches and handing out flyers. Acoustic guitar-driven sing-a-long sounds drift through the air.

In one tent, an odd looking gentlemen has three teenagers gathered at his feet, listening to his stories of conflicts past. He passes around pictures as the kids sit there, fully charmed.

Back at the front of the Camp, a victorious Mary Ann holds court at her group's own porch and makeshift command center. Someone asks Mary Ann if she has completed her daily blood pressure check. She hasn't, but she's calm now and has put shaking her cane at the cops behind her. Her inflatable throne mockingly sits beneath large warning signs, the largest of which reads:

NO OVERNIGHT CAMPING,
NO LOITERING, NO STANDING,
NO SITTING, NO FURNITURE OF ANY KIND,
NO TENTS, NO SLEEPING BAGS OR BLANKETS.

WELCOME TO THE 73rd ANNUAL ACADEMY AWARDS: ADMISSION TO GRANDSTAND BY INVITATION ONLY. ADMISSION WILL COMMENCE SOMETIME SUNDAY MORNING, MARCH 26TH

Needless to say this year, only those who were cleared well in advance will get to sit in the bleachers. Mary Ann probably won't be among them. (On television, look for her anyway. She'll be the one waving a cane.)

Flash Forward: 2002
This year, just to be on the safe side, the Academy has also pressured the LA City Council into letting it hire several hundred of its own armed security force to guard against the most credible threat of all - the unauthorized sale of Oscar-related wares. Given the excitement surrounding the return home of the awards ceremony and a past history of infringement, the Academy requested a larger-than-usual area in which their security forces might be allowed to snatch anything deemed to be protected by copyright, warning that merchants within the 5-block radius may not be prepared for their vigilance this year.

It all started earlier this month, with a public hearing at Hollywood's Egyptian Theater. 300 residents and business owners showed up for what was supposed to be a brief City Council meeting on proposed preparations for the 74th annual show. But when Academy spokeswoman Wesley Unger unveiled plans for a six-day street closure and metal detectors at the corners of Hollywood & Highland (with the stipulation that "everyone who wants to walk down the Boulevard" must pass through them), no one expected the Council to roll over and play dead the way it did with every Academy demand.

It's not that the residents and business owners didn't expect a strong security presence in the wake of the attacks. Sgt. Mike Arminio, the LAPD's lead coordinator for the show (better known as "the man the cops sent to deal with the Academy") has called the event "a potential target for anyone who would want to make some sort of statement - whether it be political, personal or terrorist." What merchants did hope for however, was to cash in from Sunday's big Oscar soiree. Instead they're getting several forced business day suspensions. During the days when they aren't shut down, (Courtesy of the City Council), some merchants will watch as Academy heavies "shop" and seize whatever the organization feels is a copyright infringement - right off their shelves.

Some Hollywood residents are contending that the Academy's actual need for security cloaks this more significant wish list that long pre-dates the events of September 11th. For years it's been waiting to pick and choose its bleacher fans and go after Hollywood T-shirt vendors and retailers that sell novelty Oscars. It apparently has no qualms about borrowing a little national security fervor to get the job done. With the momentum up, the Academy is going after every violator imaginable.

Last month it filed a federal trademark and copyright infringement suit against a Chatsworth company that offered anatomically correct, or rather, anatomically exaggerated copycat statuettes over an Internet site. The Academy also sued CBS over Mary Steenburgen's appearance with her own Oscar in 1996. Despite awarding Steenburgen the golden man for her supporting actress role in 1990's Melvin and Howard, the Academy nevertheless contends that they own the statuette. Said Communications Director John Pavlik at the time: "We're very militant about it because if you don't aggressively defend your copyrights, you can lose them."

The Academy didn't lose their rights or their lawsuit in '96, and they certainly don't intend to lose them now. Giving them permission to "root out" their own version of "the evildoers" vigilante-style just seals the deal.

ACADEMY AWARD(S)®, OSCAR(S)®, OSCAR NIGHT® and the OSCAR® statuette design are the registered trademarks and service marks, and the OSCAR® statuette the copyrighted property, of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.