While Soltopia succeeded in lowering arrests, citations and hospitalizations compared with past Deltopia events in Isla Vista, some business owners felt excluded from the festival and experienced less business than expected.
The Isla Vista Community Services District worked with a number of businesses to provide free food to UC Santa Barbara students during the festival; however, some business owners raised concerns about being excluded as vendors.
Boxi Wang, owner of Asia 101, took to social media last Sunday to accuse the district of excluding Asian-owned businesses in the festival.
The social media post claimed that “Asian businesses were not welcome” to be among vendors selected to give away free food during the music festival.
“I know sometimes they don’t reach out to Asian businesses because of some allergen concerns, but when you have 11 different vendors, and 20% of the students from UCSB are Asian or Pacific Islanders, I think you should probably include one or two Asian businesses in there, just to meet the demand of the students,” Wang told Noozhawk.
The Soltopia festival, which was held last Saturday as an alternative to the unsanctioned street party Deltopia, included free food for residents at Isla Vista Food Co-op, Yetz’s Bagel, Bagel Cafe, Roger’s Tacos, Super Cuca’s, Elubia’s Kitchen, Maria’s Tacos, Zocalo, IV Deli, Dublin’s Sports Grill, Sam’s To Go and Deja Vu Cafe.
Participating businesses received a lump sum ranging from $3,000 to $5,000 to give out a certain amount of free food.
Jonathan Abboud, IVCSD general manager, asserts that festival organizers did not deliberately exclude Asian businesses or any other businesses; rather, the time crunch to plan the event caused some things to slip through the cracks.
“We should have said no to planning the event with that timeline,” he said. “Nobody would plan an event at that scale in that amount of time with the budget we had.”
The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors approved a 72-hour noise ordinance for April 3-5. It banned any music that could be heard from the street, but it did allow for a permitted festival.
Because of that timing, IVCSD had less than three months to plan the festival.
Abboud and Myah Mashhadialireza, Soltopia organizer and IVCSD’s community programs and engagement director, met with Wang and other business owners on Wednesday to discuss the issue.
“We could always do a better job, and now we have 12 months instead of two and a half, so now we have four times the amount of time to do a better job,” Abboud said. “Ideally, every business in IV would be in this. We did try our best with the time we had.”
Abboud explained that informational packets were sent to businesses in Isla Vista inviting them to participate in the festival, but he acknowledged that some packets got lost in the shuffle.
Specifically, he said he heard from the Isla Vista Food Co-Op on Tuesday that IVCSD dropped off a packet in December, but the staff didn’t see it until February.
Other local businesses said they also did not get any information from the IVCSD about the event or being a vendor, which they said hurt sales over the weekend.
Tom Leu, owner of ice cream shop I.V. Drip, said he saw a significant drop in business and didn’t have any customers until 2 p.m. Saturday.
“My normal mornings, about $300 to $400, were down to zero on that Saturday morning,” Leu said.
However, Leu said he did get a rush of customers later in the day.
Wang said his sales during Soltopia were like any other Saturday — while Deltopia usually brings in twice the amount of sales — which forced him to send employees home early.
“This is a very crucial weekend for us to pack the bank account for summer,” Wang said. “Summer normally has, I would say, 40% to 60% sales compared to the regular year, so this weekend is going to hurt a lot of business.”
Going forward, Wang said he wants to work with IVCSD to support businesses during Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month in May and hopes to see more transparency around Soltopia next year.
