The Golden Bear

31 years ago the city of Huntington Beach council and a small group of developers had a plan for the future of the city. Main Street seemed to need a facelift a...s it was lined with old buildings up to PCH. The Golden Bear night club was at the corner of PCH and Main. In 1986 the owners of that club had stretched themselves out financially with other projects and the city council and developers saw an opportunity to take them down. They did, and before anybody could rally quickly to save the historic building it was bulldozed to the ground. A decision that many people found regrettably sad. A few years back, 2014, the city, realizing their mistake, dedicated a bronze plaque to where the building once stood. A year later that plaque was defaced with graffiti and removed, a sad reminder that you can never go home. In 2006, The Fox Theater in Fullerton is about to suffer the same fate from the wrecking ball. The citizens of Fullerton rallied and the building was saved. Later, hundreds of volunteers worked tirelessly to clean up the Fox. Now 2017 the Fox is looking worse than ever while other theaters in southern California have been up and running and generating income to facilitate their reconstruction. Why is this you may ask? For the last 10 years The Fullerton Historic Theatre Foundation headed by Leland Wilson (a real-estate developer) has been shrouded behind a veil of secrecy. Not allowing anybody from the community to attend their meetings or giving anybody access to transparency as to what the plan for the future of the theater is. After the, sparsely attended by roughly 20 people, November 4th 2017 Mayor Bruce Whitakers talk about town at The Fox, I had questions for Leland Wilson that had him rather uneasy and slightly agitated. One of my questions was why has The Fullerton Historic Theatre Foundation taken 10 years to get this theater at least a soft operational status so it can raise funds for the restoration? His answer was, we have no intention of running a theater, we will subdivide up all the surrounding buildings, lease them out and hope someone will rent out the theater in the future. If this is what his plan is for the Fox Theaters future is dim, I can guarantee you that the Fox will be dark for many more years to come as even the Plummer auditorium sits mostly unused for the last few years. He has touted that they have approached Live Nation, Goldenvoice and several other biggies in the entertainment world to do shows there, when I asked him who in particular they had talked to, as I know several people with those organizations, his answer was well we talked to a few underlings who said thanks but no thanks. Currently there is nobody who has a clue within The Fullerton Historic Theatre Foundation to run a theater or make it sustainable and they don’t want anybody who can. The Fox needs help; will any of you step up again? #fullertonobserver #ocweekly #laweekly #calstatefullerton #titan #friendsforfullertonsfuture Fox Theatre (Fullerton, California)

The plaque that is a gravestone commerating where the Golden Bear once stood has been defaced by graffiti. HB is a souless town, this is just more proof. In 1986 everything that was good and cool about HB left... Im not surprized. I was there for the plaque dedication, for me, it was more like a funeral that finally got a headstone ......

Some pohtos Jesse La Tour took during Friday night art walk in Fullerton. Robert Carvounas was there selling his book History of The Golden Bear Huntington Beach , He signed them and you got some extra goodies like an original ticket from The Bear and a repro poster of shows there. Thanks for coming down Robert, a good time was had by all!!!

Looks like no new Golden Bear in HB. Suits me just fine. Huntington Beach SUCKS.... It could never, ever live up to its past...

Pictures of the Bear over the years