Just a few storefronts away from the now-vacant Button Mash, Sick City Records is on the brink of sharing the same fate.

For nearly 20 years, therecord shop has offered Echo Park a rocker-themed hodgepodge of rare vinyl, vintage band tees and dapper haircuts from its singular barber shop chair. But as rent continues to increase and fewer people stop by to browse its sonic selection or get a trim, Sick City Records is struggling to keep its doors open.

“We’ve worked so hard for this. We’ve been doing this for 20 years. We have to fight to keep this place open — it’s what we love to do,” said Jesse Lopez, the record store’s co-owner and resident barber.

Lopez and his business partner, Brian Flores, attribute their financial difficulties to an overall rough year. In January, when the Eaton and Palisades fires broke out, the shop was desolate for around a month. Then, right as summer kicked off — usually a lucrative season for record-collecting tourists stopping by — ICE raids began happening all over the city.

According to Flores, the streets were filled with large fleets of cars all summer, with loud sirens on, trying to scare people. Recent data from the L.A. Economic Equity Accelerator and Fellowship and the L.A. County Economic Development Corp show that 43% of Latino business owners in the county reported revenue losses of 50% or higher since June.

“No one was walking around. It was June. Nobody’s walking their dog,” said Flores. “In this whole shopping center, everybody is an immigrant.”

The record shop’s finances reached an all-time low in October. The duo was two months behind rent; their inventory had gone stagnant and their once regular barber shop clients had become sporadic. The prospect of closing up shop and cutting their losses became more real than ever.

In a last effort to save their music hub, Flores and Lopez have since picked up a vendor spot at the monthly Rose Bowl Flea Market, started a series of collaborative fundraisers with local artists and launched a GoFundMe account.

Since they first opened in 2006, Flores and Lopez have always specialized in rock, punk and alternative — carrying bands like the Velvet Underground, the Smiths, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Suede. The inside of their space reflects that — the walls are filled with wheatpasted skulls; rows of Iron Maiden and Suicidal Tendencies tees line the perimeter and their most valuable merchandise — like a sealed Iggy Pop vinyl, a clear variant of Portishead’s “Dummy,” and a signed Echo & the Bunnymen record — hang high on elevated shelves.

“A lot of stuff’s been sitting here for a long time,” Flores confessed as he looks around at the different half-filled genre crates.

“We try to make what we can. We make our own buttons. We do our own silk screening. We can’t buy high-end vintage. We can’t afford it right now,” he added. “It’s embarrassing when the kids are asking for new rap records and these record guys come in looking for something special, but we don’t have it.”

Band tees and vinyl records hang on a wall inside of Sick City Records.

(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)

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In recent years, Sick City has also made an effort to expand into other genres, and now carries anything from country to jazz and rap. Between albums like Tyler the Creator’s “Cherry Bomb” and the Cocteau Twins’ “Heaven or Las Vegas,” Flores says they will always dedicate several of their crates to local underground acts, featuring anything from their customers’ passion projects to bands who play the city’s bars and house shows.

Their local selection is usually most popular during the summertime and when people are in town for events like the relatively nearby Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.

“Truthfully, this year we haven’t had that many tourists. People are usually looking for L.A. bands to take home to places like Australia and Canada and ask us for recommendations,” said Flores. “But this year, without tourists, it’s still slow.”

Their dedication to L.A.’s local sounds goes back to their roots as a business. In 1999, the duo first sold vintage band tees at Melrose Trading Post. At the time, the market was mostly older vendors selling novelty items. Flores and Lopez decided to shake things up a bit by playing Metallica in the early-morning hours and began to build a younger clientele who were interested in their vintage clothing. Over time, they learned how to screen print and started selling their own designs.

After about five years of selling at the market, they decided to upscale into a more permanent business that would focus on music. In 2006, they opened a space in Silver Lake that functioned as a barbershop with a couple of record crates. Despite it being the early 2000s, the vendors were ahead of the up-and-coming vinyl revival, as millennials started to pay more attention to physical media.

As record-collecting grew in popularity and events like Record Store Day went mainstream, they saw a surge in sales. In 2008, they expanded the record portion of their business, opening their current location in Echo Park.

With this stint of success, the record shop started to function as a record label as well. In the early 2010s, the duo helped some customers and longtime friends who were in bands release, distribute and promote their albums. Flores and Lopez would help choose the album art, the order of the track list and help book shows.

Sick City Records owners Jessie Lopez, left, and Brian Flores at their Echo Park shop.

(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)

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One of the first bands they worked with was local rock group the High Curbs, who were teenagers at the time and thereforestruggled to get into the bars where they were booked to play. With the help of Sick City, they were able to release their 2016 album. The band, which still regularly tours and releases music, made its return to the record shop earlier this summer for the annual music festival Echo Park Rising.

“They told me, ‘We don’t do any small shows anymore, but for Echo Park Rising, we want to give back and play for you guys.’ We had a full house,” Flores said. “We felt the love back.”

At the height of the business, when they were funding their record label, Flores says they were making around $8,000 a month. Now they are making closer to $2,000 monthly, with customers spending an average of around $10 per visit. On a weekday afternoon in November, a handful of patrons came into the shop to sift through their vinyl selection, but only one customer made a purchase.

“We want to do more. We want to do more shows and promote more bands. We’ve done shows at Los Globos, the Silverlake Lounge, the Redwood [Bar and Grill]. But all this costs money,” Flores said. “So when we were able to put out those records, it was very expensive at the time, but we were able to do it.”

Flores and Lopez continued to operate out of both stores until 2020, when they decided to consolidate both businesses into the one that exists today.

Since the pandemic, Sick City Records’ rent has continually increased. In 2020, the duo paid $1,800 for the space. Today they pay $3,500. In the last several years, gentrification has taken hold of Echo Park, hiking up both residential and commercial rent. Flores says that in the nearly 20 years that they’ve been on Sunset Boulevard, he’s seen many small businesses collapse from these strains.

With a specialty in rock, punk and alternative, Sick City Records’ selection often spotlights local L.A. acts.

(Andres Melo / For The Times)

“There are a couple of small coffee shops, like Woodcat, that are still there. But Spacedust [a clothing shop] is gone. Cosmic Vinyl is gone,” said Flores. The latter establishment shuttered in 2018 but reopened earlier this year at a new location in Eagle Rock.

“There’s no parking. I don’t know why they keep raising the rent. But Echo Park has always been a hub where people want to be.”

Sick City Records has several fundraisers and flea market pop-ups planned before the end of the year. On Dec. 13, they will be hosting an art show at the shop called “Hold On to Your Friends,” which will feature live DJs, local artists and vendors. All proceeds will go to keeping Sick City in operation.

“Hopefully, people don’t forget about us. We’re just trying to keep the music alive, keep a good vibe and keep promoting the music community,” said Flores. “We just got to get back on our feet. We want to bring in product that we’re proud of.”

Construction on the Vincent Thomas Bridge near the Port of Los Angeles is slated to begin next month, but the project will not include a 26-foot bridge hoist that port officials were hoping for.

Port Executive Director Gene Seroka proposed raising the bridge earlier this year amid existing plans from the California Department of Transportation to re-deck the emerald green overpass connecting San Pedro to Terminal Island and Long Beach.

Raising the bridge would allow larger, more efficient ships to travel underneath carrying cargo. About 40% of the port’s cargo capacity is beyond the bridge, which sits at 185 feet high.

The California State Transportation Agency, the cabinet-level agency that oversees Caltrans, nixed the suggestion last month, saying the deck replacement had to begin as soon as possible.

“Vincent Thomas Bridge is scheduled for a much-needed re-decking project … beginning in January of 2026 and ending in advance of the LA 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games,” an agency spokesperson said in a statement.

The agency “welcomes continued discussions to a path forward while we work to make sure the bridge is structurally sound and safe for the motoring public.”

Plans to fix up the bridge are projected to cost more than $700 million and will require the bridge to be closed to the public for 16 months. The port’s proposal to raise the bridge would have added $1.5 billion in costs and forced the bridge to close for more than two years.

The 60-year-old bridge is a local symbol to surrounding communities and supports tourism across the harbor area. It also provides a key artery for cargo trucks traveling to and from the port.

Preliminary detour routes for the bridge’s closure would send commuters, tourists and cargo through Harry Bridges Boulevard in Wilmington and on the 110 and 405 freeways.

The San Pedro Chamber of Commerce voted over the summer in support of a study on the effects of raising the bridge. Los Angeles City Councilmember Tim McOsker, who represents port-adjacent communities including Wilmington, Harbor City and San Pedro, said he supported raising the bridge as long as it was safe and took locals’ needs into account.

Seroka has not given up on a solution to help accommodate the next generation of cargo ships at the Port of Los Angeles.

“All parties recognize the benefits of additional clearance to jobs and the long-term economic vitality of both the Port of Los Angeles and California,” Seroka said in a statement.

“While we were hopeful that we would be able to include a bridge raising component into Caltrans’ pending critical maintenance project, we’re encouraged by the strong support of the administration to quickly explore additional projects,” he said.

Future projects might include raising the bridge after the deck replacement is complete, or building a new bridge altogether, Seroka said.

The port director had originally suggested raising the bridge by putting sleeve lifts and platforms on the bridge’s legs. The Bayonne Bridge connecting Staten Island, N.Y., and Bayonne, N.J., was raised in a similar manner in 2019.

Hollywood moguls once dismissed the outsize ambitions of Netflix’s executives.

“Is the Albanian army going to take over the world?” former Time Warner Chairman Jeff Bewkes asked a reporter 15 years ago. “I don’t think so.”

Think again. On Friday, Netflix co-Chief Executive Ted Sarandos pulled off an audacious $82-billion deal to buy much of Bewkes’ old haunts: the Warner Bros. film and TV studios in Burbank, and HBO and the HBO Max streaming service in Culver City.

“This is a rare opportunity,” Sarandos said in an investor call. “It’s going to help us achieve our mission to entertain the world and to bring people together through great stories. We’ve built a great business, and to do that, we’ve had to be bold and continue to evolve.”

If the takeover is approved — it could face a raft of legal and regulatory challenges — Netflix would gain ownership of such classics as “Casablanca” and “Goonies” and popular characters including Batman, Scooby-Doo, Dirty Harry and Harry Potter.

The acquisition represents a moment of triumph for the brash Sarandos, who has gone from Hollywood gate-crasher to the ultimate power broker.

“There seems to be no ceiling of opportunity for Ted Sarandos,” said Tom Nunan, a former studio and network executive. “He’s the king of Hollywood.”

Netflix’s victory in the auction for Warner Bros. stunned many in Hollywood who figured Paramount — whose bid was backed by the one of the world’s wealthiest men, Larry Ellison — had a lock on the prized Warner assets.

Even Netflix’s brass downplayed their merger ambitions as recently as two months ago. Co-Chief Executive Greg Peters shrugged off any interest at a Bloomberg conference, saying: “We come from a deep heritage of builders rather than buyers.”

But the streaming giant’s dominant market position and strong balance sheet allowed it to assemble a largely cash bid that wowed Warner Bros. Discovery’s board, which voted unanimously in favor. What’s more, Netflix agreed to absorb more than $10 billion of Warner Bros.’ debt, bringing the deal’s total value to $82.7 billion.

Warner shareholders and U.S. and foreign regulators still must approve Netflix’s takeover. Netflix — which is based in Los Gatos but has a large presence in Hollywood — said it expects the deal will close within a year to 18 months.

Netflix, however, already is facing stiff opposition from cinema chains, lawmakers, prominent creatives and labor unions. The Writers Guild of America said the deal should be blocked.

“The world’s largest streaming company swallowing one of its biggest competitors is what antitrust laws were designed to prevent,” the WGA said.

A career of defying convention

If it succeeds, the takeover would be a coup for Sarandos, the company’s often controversial co-CEO who has been responsible for Netflix’s content operations since 2000. Until recently, he was seen as a disruptor who upended the industry’s long-standing business models, especially its reliance on the big screen.

It’s a remarkable trajectory for the 61-year-old Phoenix native and movie buff, who once clerked in a strip mall video store, joining Netflix when it was a scrappy Silicon Valley startup distributing DVDs through the mail in red envelopes.

Company co-founder Reed Hastings was impressed by Sarandos after he struck a first-of-its-kind revenue-sharing deal with Warner Bros. as an executive at West Coast Video/Video City retail chain.

Sarandos has been in charge of Netflix’s content operations ever since.

One of five children, he’s the son of an electrician and a stay-at-home mom who left the TV on all day.

While working at the video store, Sarandos earned a reputation for giving great movie recommendations to customers based on what they liked to watch. In many ways, he was a human version of Netflix’s now famous recommendation algorithm.

Sarandos spent his first three years at Netflix working out of his bedroom in Los Angeles. Hastings and Sarandos’ enterprise was largely responsible for bankrupting the then-dominant video rental chain, Blockbuster.

His knack for knowing what audiences want was instrumental in Sarandos’ ascent at Netflix and Hollywood: Netflix now has more than 301 million subscribers, and it could grow even more.

Analysts estimate the acquisition could add an additional 100 million customers to the streaming service — a bounty that is expected to draw the attention of antitrust regulators.

Over time, the company shifted to streaming licensed TV and films, but as studios started to pull away from those deals, Netflix began its foray into original content.

Again, Netflix wasn’t taken too seriously at first. Sarandos would get TV show scripts with signs of rejection — coffee stains and smudged fingerprints — but his gamble on buying the rights to David Fincher’s political thriller, “House of Cards,” starring Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright, in 2011 changed that.

Sarandos walked into Fincher’s office and offered him a provocative deal: Netflix would commit to the first two seasons of “House of Cards” without seeing a pilot for $100 million.

“There were 100 reasons not to do this with Netflix,” Sarandos told The Times in 2013. “We had to give them one great reason to do it with Netflix.”

Sarandos has made a career out of defying convention.

Under his leadership, Netflix released episodes to shows all at once, allowing people to binge watch an entire season. The platform greenlighted full seasons of shows even before they began, and older series like “Friends” and “The Office” found new audiences years after they ended on network television.

He made bets on series that other traditional studios passed on, including the popular sci-fi show “Stranger Things,” which would become a global hit with its own universe of characters, like “Star Wars.”

Some studios were hesitant to give the show’s creators, Matt and Ross Duffer, first-time showrunners, the reins. Typically, Netflix and Sarandos thought differently.

“They read it, they got the project, and they wanted me and Ross to be involved as showrunners and to direct, and that completely changed our lives,” said Matt Duffer on stage at the L.A. premiere of the final season of “Stranger Things” in Hollywood this month.

“Ted made that decision all the way back then, 2015, and that’s why we’re here today,” he said.

Over time, Netflix became a place where talent wanted to pitch their shows.

“The goal is to become HBO faster than HBO can become us,” Sarandos told GQ in 2013.

Soon, Sarandos might be in charge of HBO.

Netflix expanded its reach globally, creating a production pipeline abroad. Its biggest international hits include 2021 Korean language series “Squid Game,” Netflix’s most popular show of all time, with its first season generating 265.2 million views in its first three months.

But as Netflix’s strategy changed the Hollywood landscape, it also angered theater owners and competitors who were upset that the streamer was playing by different rules that challenged long-standing practices in the entertainment industry.

Sarandos in particular has taken direct aim at the traditional practice of releasing movies in theaters first — and keeping them there for months before making them available for home viewing.

Netflix generally releases movies in theaters only for short periods in order to appeal to fans or qualify for awards. They appear on its platform shortly after they debut in theaters.

Sarandos was promoted from chief content officer to co-CEO in 2020, running the company with Hastings, who had previously served as Netflix’s CEO.

The duo faced their biggest challenge in 2022, when Netflix’s subscriber numbers plunged by 200,000 subscribers in its first quarter, the first decline in more than a decade.

Analysts feared that the streaming revolution was over and Netflix had reached a ceiling to its growth.

But Netflix was able to find new revenue streams by cracking down on password sharing and entering new areas of business it previously overlooked, including advertising and live events like sports, including NFL football.

In 2023, Hastings stepped down from his role to be executive chairman, and Peters, chief operating officer, was named to the co-CEO role.

Today, Netflix is widely heralded as the winner of the streaming wars years after many rivals tried to enter into the space, putting the company in an ideal position to make a significant cash and stock bid for the Warner Bros. Discovery assets it was seeking.

Unlike many of its competitors, Netflix is profitable — the company generated $2.5 billion in net income in the third quarter, up 8% from a year earlier.

Netflix has offered Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders $23.25 in cash and $4.50 of Netflix stock for each share. In September, before Paramount started the bidding, Warner Bros. was trading around $12.

“These assets are more valuable in our business model, and our business model is more valuable with these assets,” Sarandos said in a call with investors on Friday.

If the deal is approved, Netflix would be the third owner of Warner Bros. and HBO in a decade. On the call, Peters addressed his earlier critique that most big media mergers fail.

“We understand these assets that we’re buying,” Peters told investors on Friday. “Things that are critical in Warner Bros. are key businesses that we operate in, and we understand a lot of times, the acquiring company, it was a legacy, non-growth business that was looking for a lifeline. That doesn’t apply to us. We’ve got a healthy, growing business.”

Sarandos expressed confidence the deal would go through.

“This deal is pro-consumer, pro-innovation, pro-worker, pro-creator, pro-growth,” Sarandos told investors. “Our plans here are to work really closely with all the appropriate governments and regulators, but really confident that we’re going to get all the necessary approvals that we need.”

Sarandos is one of Hollywood’s most well-compensated CEOs, with a package that was valued at $61.9 million in 2024.

Long seen as friendly to talent, he has weathered some controversies over the years.

During dual strikes in 2023, writers and actors complained bitterly about how Netflix was compensating them for their work on streaming shows.

Sarandos was seen as one of the key Hollywood players in helping bridge the gap. One of the outcomes of the strikes was that studios, including Netflix, would release viewership data to the unions and give bonuses to talent based on certain viewership metrics.

In 2021, Sarandos faced internal backlash within Netflix when some employees organized a walkout over transphobic comments said on comedian Dave Chappelle’s special “The Closer.” Sarandos had stood by the comedian, saying in a staff memo that “content on screen doesn’t directly translate to real-world harm.” But days later he told Variety that “I screwed up that internal communication.”

“I should have led with a lot more humanity,” Sarandos said.

Despite its dominance in streaming, Netflix continues to face challenges from other forms of entertainment, including YouTube and social media sites like TikTok or gaming communities like Fortnite that all compete for eyeballs.

“In a world where people have more choices than ever how to spend their time, we can’t stand still,” Sarandos said Friday. “We need to keep innovating and investing in stories that matter most to audiences, and that’s what this deal is all about.”