Taste of Bavaria

Dave Brooks

Trying to make sense of two 80-year-old gymnasts performing in the

beer hall, Sean Pasco took a cue from his fellow revelers and found

his clarity at the end of a plastic beer cup.

“You know you could try to wrap you’re mind around this place all

you want, but it won’t start to make sense until you’re a little

loaded,” he admitted. “The whole point is to be drunk.”

Bavarian historians might have a few bones with Pasco’s

characterization of Oktoberfest, but it seemed to fit the atmosphere

at the Old World Village shopping center where Pasco and friends were

celebrating the nearly 200-year-old holiday with an odd array of

entertainment and revelry.

Oktoberfest kicked off Friday at the dim banquet hall of Old World

German Restaurant. For about $10 a person, revelers can drown

themselves in giant beers and shots of Jagermeister sold by girls

with blond pigtails. The month-long celebration that occurs Wednesday

through Sunday until Oct. 30, is a takeoff on the Munich celebration

of a similar name, which commemorates the wedding of the Crown Prince

of Bavaria to the Princess Therese of Saxe Hildburghausen

Beyond it’s historical significance, the celebration has taken on

a more important role for the Center Avenue shopping mall. After 26

years in business, Oktoberfest has become the last economic engine of

the aging Old World Village.

Built in 1978 by German developer Josef Bischof, the 50-shop

center was designed to look like an Alpine village, complete with

narrow cobblestone streets and wood-lace trim smothered with piped-in

oom-pa-pah music. Most of the shops were run by European immigrants,

many of them Germans, hawking a variety of wares that could otherwise

only be purchased abroad. Like their European counterparts,

shopkeepers long lived above their stores in small flats, and

congregated on Sundays at the center’s community church.

Things began to change in the early 1980s said Bischof’s daughter

Cyndie Kasko, when new tenets began to move in. Too many individual

owners created division over the future of the shopping center, and

constant turnover made continuity very difficult.

“There used to be a lot more harmony among the owners,” said Horst

Zobel, who runs a custom upholstery shop at the village. “It seems

the owners no longer work together for the village. It seems like

they just work for themselves.”

Today Old World Village sits sandwiched between 20-story office

buildings and one of Southern California’s busiest freeways,

resembling a roadside attraction from a monochrome postcard. It’s

plastic mountains and fading murals give the feeling of a miniature

golf-course or a breakaway Disney republic; a place where pensioners

buy bratwurst and garden gnomes go to die.

“I think we need more businesses and less services,” said Ursel

Petermann, who runs an import shoe store at Old World. The shopping

center is no longer solely focuses on European goods. It’s not

uncommon to find a chiropractor next to a store that sells Dachshund

memorabilia, or a Web page designer near a German delicatessen.

Kasko said the decline of retail operations has brought a

subsequent decline in foot traffic, making events like Oktoberfest

the lifeblood of the shopping center.

“It accounts for about 90% of our business,” she said. “We do some

wedding and banquets, but we live for Oktoberfest. It’s what holds us

up.”

Despite the recent decline, Kasko said the future looks bright for

Old World. The opening of the Bella Terra shopping center next door

in August could rejuvenate foot traffic in the area, Kasko said, and

possibly bring in a new generation of business owners to transform

Old World into a hub of chic European clothing boutiques and

specialty shops.

“I’d love to see young people here with a positive attitude,” she

said. “This place has a lot of potential.”

* DAVE BROOKS covers City Hall. He can be reached at (714)

965-7173 or by e-mail at dave.brooks@latimes.com.