The rest of Beverly Hills might be posh but not the Scientology Mission Beverly Hills. They obviously can't afford to get a new sign even though Scientology AND Beverly Hills are both extremely image conscious. Note that the "y" was ripped off, the "S" was replaced badly, and all the smaller letters were yanked off. This left unsightly glue spots which were then painted over in tacky gold. Meanwhile the Church just opened two giant, lush buildings in Inglewood this year. Why aren't they spending money on this mission? Because this mission is not owned by the church it is owned by franchisees.

I would show you a link to the Mission's website but they no longer have one. According to the main Sci website they are open 9AM-10PM but not when I was there. I checked the parking lot several times and, although the cars changed, nobody opened the place.

Looks like someone made a quick trip to Michael's craft store to get some gold paint. Good catch LOL.

Even without the "Y" missing the sign is hideous.

Straight out of "The Beverly Hillbillies" The ceement pond is in the back Jethro!

I don't know if it still applies, but I just read in the book "Blown For Good" that there was a bit of a scandal at the Beverly Hills Mission (someone correct me if I'm mistaken about this.) It seems that the Mission was thriving for years and doing extremely well until D.M. changed the system and created "Ideal Orgs" and that rule that the only way that people could be brought into the organization was through "Personality Tests" and the use of the e-meters. My understanding from the book is that that never worked for Beverly Hills, rich people didn't like sitting down and holding two soup cans and being asked questions. The executive director at the time used other techniques and they mission did well and made lots of money, but D.M. was furious that they weren't following the Ideal Org template and the mission was brought up on some kind of ethics violations. (I don't know all of the terms, but you get the idea.) I wonder if this was never resolved and the mission is still losing money.

In October 1982, Miscavige required Scientology Missions to enter new trademark usage contracts which established stricter policies on the use of Scientology materials. Over the two years following the formation of the RTC, Miscavige and his RTC team replaced most of Scientology's upper and middle management.

It just wasn't Beverly Hills. Many of the mission owners were declared and/or forced to sell their ownership in the missions back to the corporate church at less their market value.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-sc ... 9963.story

http://www.sptimes.com/TampaBay/102598/ ... part3.html

Karen de la Carriere might know more about this.