Eye on the Hills: New clothes ‘Shop’ opens in Oakland’s Montclair Village
An Oakland hills mom has opened a children’s clothing store in Montclair Village. Ali Baker has named her business simply The Shop and has moved into the storefront at 6123 La Salle Ave., which was vacated when the owner of Folks Art retired recently.
“I have three kids and wanted a cute shop to shop locally,” she says, adding that she was frustrated by the erratic hours at a longtime children’s clothing store on Mountain Boulevard. “It would drive me crazy it wasn’t open.”
Baker says she’s spent 19 years in the fashion industry, working for some of the top brands and that she’s developed connections that let her buy overstock on a wide range of clothing.
“I get brands on discount. Prices run the gamut from $10 to, originally, $30,000.”
Fully half the shop is children’s merchandise, with the rest of the inventory dedicated to men’s and women’s clothing. She says new items come in every week.
Around town: Across the street from The Shop is another Montclair clothing store — which is liquidating its inventory and preparing to close. At 6136 La Salle Ave., Hula has been a staple of Oakland’s Montclair Village since 1997, when Andrea Faber moved her store from Berkeley’s Elmwood District to the Oakland hills. Faber says she’s retiring and would like to find someone to buy the shop. In the meantime, its merchandise is 25% off.
Parking costs: There’s a free alternative to paid meter parking that the city of Oakland has implemented from noon till 6 p.m. on Sundays. Unlike the rest of Oakland, the Montclair Parking Garage at the top of La Salle Avenue is free all day on Sundays, at least until further notice.
The city’s new Sunday meter fees began Jan. 4, with a 30-day warning/grace period. City officials say that activating the meters on Sundays will improve parking availability and generate revenue. Reaction online has been mixed, with some Montclarions vowing to take their Sunday shopping to areas where parking is still free.
Film viewing: The Grand Lake Theater is showing a fascinating documentary on Jan. 28 about an East Bay reverend and peace advocate whom indigenous people prophesied will save the Amazon rainforest. “The Man Who Saves the World?” is acclaimed filmmaker Gabe Polsky’s cross-continent journey with Patrick McCollum, whom Jane Goodall referred to as “probably the most extraordinary person” she’d ever met.
Polsky and McCollum will hold a question-and-answer session after the 7 p.m. showing, which is said will reveal the progress being made to fulfill the prophesy. McCollum says he’s been working with indigenous leaders from nine countries. Colombia, Brazil and Ecuador face most of the challenges, with the indigenous people of Colombia unable to protect roughly 89 million acres of rainforest reservation they were awarded in 2016.
“Petroleum companies, mining companies, timber companies and cattle companies simply ignore their sovereignty and exploit their resources at will through the use of armed militias,” says McCollum. “One of the fundamental strategies of my project, is to unite all of the small tribes into one huge significant force so that this kind of exploitation can no longer take place.”
He says he and his allies have been “very successful at stopping numerous illegal operations, and Colombia and Brazil have since enacted significant new laws protecting the environment and the indigenous peoples.” For more information and tickets, see themanwhosavestheworld.com.
Ginny Prior can be reached at ginnyprior@hotmail.com and followed on X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, Facebook and at ginnyprior.com.