Farewell to P2 as Swarthmore Chapter Draws to a Close

By GABRIELLA BOCK | Reporter

Erica Simpson, who has run a counter-culture flavored clothing operation in the Palisades since 1999, has shuttered her landmark store P2 on the edge of Palisades Village project—for the time being.

Simpson, a friend to generations of young skaters, packed up the last of her boxes last weekend and will be spending the summer with her family in Portland, Oregon.

It is expected that Rick Caruso’s executives will move into the empty store and use it as a management center.

Simpson has declined to comment, but associates said she is expected back in the store to revamp it a month before the pedestrian-friendly Palisades Village opens in the summer of 2018.

“It will be very different, but it will be all Erica,” said a friend last week. “It will make the Palisades cool again.”

Last October, Simpson sued Rick Caruso claiming that the construction has caused a “sharp decline in revenue” for her business.

She sought an injunction to halt the construction, including a stop to the dozens of trucks that passed by her doorstep on Swarthmore every day moving dirt to Potrero Canyon, alleging nuisance, negligence and a failure to pay a promised $100,000 rent “subsidy.”

Rains, which flooded her store over the last month, did not help business

Other tenants in the last remaining block of old Swarthmore are facing similar issues, and some are believed to be close to striking a deal with Caruso in the near future.

But the problems may not stop there.

There have been a growing chorus of whispered complaints from retailers on the other side of Sunset Boulevard that dirt from the Caruso “Big Dig” and the inability to park on the Caruso side of Sunset has been undermining their businesses too.

At least one store, the Naturella Beauty Shop, has hung a hand-written “We Are Open” sign on its door.

The Sunset situation has not become as legally contentious as the Swarthmore saga. But, observers said, that chapter may at last be drawing to a close.