The council member who placed first was 86 years old in office.
Crescenta Valley City Councilman Chris Kilpatrick has resigned from his position after surveillance video showed him and another man urinating outside an LGBTQ+ bar in downtown Los Angeles. Kilpatrick and his friend were seen relieving themselves in the employee entrance to the Precinct Tavern on South Broadway, sometime around 2 a.m. Saturday, according to a video posted to the bar's Instagram account.
According to the post, the two men left the bar carrying cocktail glasses before urinating on a set of glass doors. An employee approached the men and attempted to take their drinks away.
But the taller man, later identified as Kilpatrick, threw the employee to the ground, according to the post.
“The area is a safe place for everyone; let's have a good time,” the post said before urging patrons not to jerk off (in more crude terms). “Oh, yes, we also have several bathrooms.”
Kilpatrick's attorney, John Doran, said two bar employees approached Kilpatrick and his friend without identifying themselves, grabbed Kilpatrick forcefully, and asked him if he was at the bar.
“My client instinctively backed away in self-defense,” Duran said in a statement. “It was reasonable for him to believe they were about to be beaten by bar staff, who were not wearing uniforms.”
Duran, who served several terms on the West Hollywood City Council before losing his bid for re-election in 2020, knows something about scandals in office. The city paid $500,000 in 2016 to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit against him, and more allegations in 2019 led to protests calling for his resignation.
While Kilpatrick was not identified in his Instagram post, people wrote in the comments that he resembled Kilpatrick, who was elected to the Crescenta Valley City Council in 2020.
Crescenta Valley, northwest of Pasadena, includes the cities of Montrose, Sunland, and La Cañada Flintridge, along with parts of the city of Glendale. The City Council on which Kilpatrick served “serves as an advisory body that advocates for the interests and concerns of our residents,” Council President Harry Lyons said in a recent blog post.
Council members learned of the surveillance video Tuesday and asked Kilpatrick to provide a statement, but by then he had hired an attorney, according to a letter detailing the council's response. Lyons called a special meeting on the issue, but before that could take place, Kilpatrick “expressed his desire to resign from the board,” the letter said.
The Council accepted his resignation and it became effective from that day.
“While we do not condone any of the behavior we observed on social media, we appreciate his three years of commitment and dedication to serving the community while serving on the council,” council leadership said in the letter.
Doran, Kilpatrick's attorney, said public urination is not a criminal offense, and battery is a misdemeanor offense, including “unlawful touching as demonstrated by the person who first grabbed my client.”
It is unclear whether the bar employee was injured during the incident.
