Offbeat Oasis Offers a Bit of Everything, Including Gunfire

Question: In what venerable Los Angeles locale can you eat breakfast, get a haircut, buy a shotgun and exchange wedding vows?

Hint: You can begin your subsequent honeymoon by strolling a few hundred yards to Dodger Stadium to catch a ballgame.

Answer: The 21-acre Los Angeles Police Academy in Elysian Park, a veritable law enforcement Disneyland for sworn officers and the public alike.

The rambling tile-roofed academy, in operation for six decades, includes a full-service gift and gun shop, a haircutting salon, a shoeshine stand and a charming ‘50s-feeling coffee shop with Cobb salad on the menu, billy clubs on the wall and a display case full of Jack Webb memorabilia next to the takeout coffeepot. All are open to the public.

True, the unceasing din of gunfire from the facility’s four firing ranges may be a bit disconcerting to the average Angeleno. But for those who don’t mind the racket, there is also a stained glass-adorned chapel and meditation center overlooking the noisy outdoor target practice center. An adjacent tropical rock garden and waterfall, which exude the feel of a semi-excavated Mayan temple, is open to the public for receptions of all kinds.

“We stop shooting for a few minutes while weddings are taking place,” says Officer Charles Foote, who administers the facility on behalf of the nonprofit Los Angeles Police Revolver and Athletic Club. “There are a bizarre combination of things here, aren’t there?”

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Founded at the site of the 1932 Olympic pistol and rifle range, the Los Angeles Police Academy graduated its first recruit class in 1936. The main Spanish-style structure is an outgrowth of an Olympic Village building, shipped east from Baldwin Hills and reassembled for use as a clubhouse.

Over the years, an athletic field, swimming pool, tennis court, weight room and portable classrooms have been added. Stately pines and palms that grace the grounds have grown to epic heights.

“It’s a great place to work, probably the nicest working environment in the Police Department,” says Capt. Gary Brennan, who runs the LAPD’s training programs.

Yet in recent decades, the academy has faced a rocky existence.

A 1972 city study found that the site “is now and will always be inadequate for the high quality and comprehensive training required for the LAPD.” Three years later, leaders of the Citizens Committee to Save Elysian Park unsuccessfully sued to stop the longtime tradition of police cadets jogging in formation through the adjacent park.

The griping continued in the mid-1980s, with Echo Park neighborhood groups complaining bitterly about the day-and-night discord caused by gunfire.

In an effort to meet Mayor Richard Riordan’s demands for a beefed-up police force, the LAPD opened in January a new four-story recruit training center in Westchester.

Regardless, the academy has hung on to provide in-service training for LAPD veterans as well as the final three months of instruction (including weapons training and graduation exercises) for recruits.

Academy shooting ranges, classrooms and the gym are off limits to anyone but recruits and officers. And relatively few know to take advantage of the rest because “we can’t advertise due to the fact we’re a nonprofit organization,” said veteran cafe employee Debbie Chamberlain.

The cafe, open weekdays for breakfast and lunch, serves a wide variety of egg, turkey, lettuce and beef-based dishes, as well as insulated individual pitchers of coffee for a mere 70 cents.

Doughnuts are not on the menu.

“Oddly enough, it’s like the old-time wives’ tales,” Foote said. “Most police don’t eat doughnuts today. But they do drink coffee, that’s for sure.”

Next door to the cafe is Melody Libonati’s hairstyling salon. The former Beverly Hills and Glendale stylist says that as a result of her typical clientele, she specializes in “wash and wear haircuts--the same length all around: short.” Libonati also does longer cuts for undercover detectives, female officers and the public.

Then there is the gift and gun shop, chock-full of LAPD shot glasses ($2.75), an infant clothing line including sweat shirts that read “Stolen from LAPD” ($13.75), handcuffs, sunglasses, holsters, revolvers and rifles.

The firearms and LAPD “raid” jackets are only available to sworn officers--although there is an exception for the nylon jackets, according to store manager Bob Hickey.

“The new big gimmick in Japan is we furnish them with things like raid jackets,” he said. “If they go out of the country [by mail], it doesn’t affect us.”

Although police make up the bulk of customers, some outsiders, seeking kitschy knickknacks, T-shirts or merchandising ideas, also frequent the shop.

Just the other day, Jamie De Matoff, a muscle-shirted entrepreneur who vends O.J. Simpson watches and T-shirts, was perusing the merchandise for what he described as research purposes.

“You have to be creative and get ideas,” he said. “It’s pretty cool here. I’m impressed.

“My next stop is the county coroner’s shop.”

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Perhaps the most impressive portion of the academy is the rock garden and waterfalls, a city cultural heritage monument designed in the mid-1930s by landscape artist Francois Scotti.

Several times a month, the picturesque spot plays host to weddings, police retirement parties and the occasional controversial affair such as a recent fund-raiser for former LAPD Officer Laurence M. Powell, imprisoned in the Rodney G. King beating.

Next Saturday, Bryce Greenstein of Toluca Lake is due to be bar mitzvahed in the rock garden.

His mother, Linda, said it had stuck in her mind for six years since she first saw it during a children’s field trip.

“I was just amazed. I couldn’t believe this jewel of a setting was there,” she said.

Linda Greenstein said she has ruled out her son’s suggestion of gun-related centerpieces. And the food catered by the cafe is hardly kosher, she acknowledged.

But there is at least one advantage to the academy besides its beauty.

“I certainly won’t have to worry about security,” she said.