LOS ANGELES — Kourtney Kardashian's lifestyle brand Poosh threw a promotional poolside party at a Malibu mansion over the weekend, drawing dozens of influencers to the coastal city.

Now, the city's mayor, Bruce Silverstein, is accusing the event's planners of misleading the city in order to get a permit to throw the party and going on to violate the city's rules during the event. And he said Kardashian's party is only the latest example of a large event put on by the rich getting what he says is favorable treatment from city staff members.

In a fiery Facebook post shared Saturday that has since drawn the attention of media outlets across the globe, Silverstein blasted his colleagues at City Hall for allegedly choosing "celebrities and the uber wealthy over residents" and accused city staff of selling out to the Kardashians.

A spokesman for the city told the L.A. Times via email that its staff is "looking into the matter fully" and declined to comment further. A representative for Kardashian declined to comment.

Parties for the wealthy are "an endemic issue," Silverstein told the L.A. Times in an interview Monday. "This is not about this event, it's about the way the city handles events of this nature."

The Poosh party may be part of a growing trend.

Throughout the summer, city leaders have criticized events that have drawn large crowds of the rich and famous to Malibu, generating traffic issues and other safety concerns.

One such event took place on the Fourth of July at Nobu Malibu, an upscale sushi restaurant. The event reportedly drew a long list of A-listers including Leonardo DiCaprio, Michael B. Jordan, Kevin Hart and Jamie Foxx. And as more than 700 guests packed into the restaurant for the party, traffic backed up from the parking lot onto Pacific Coast Highway, clogging a thoroughfare already full of holiday beachgoers. Residents upset with the Nobu congestion flooded local authorities with calls.

"There were party buses, limousines, private coaches," Los Angeles County Sheriff's Sgt. Christopher Soderlund said during a Malibu City Council meeting on July 10. "What they did was because there wasn't any parking for them, they basically took over the center median of PCH and left their vehicles there, and there's dozens and dozens of vehicles."

City leaders were concerned that emergency vehicles wouldn't have been able to pass through on the highway if needed. The city fined Nobu for failing to obtain a temporary use permit, noting that the 700-person guest list "was clearly more than the 100-person threshold for a private event to require a TUP," according to the Malibu Times. The city declined to specify the dollar amount of the fines, which appeared to be minimal, according to reports.

...continued

©2023 Los Angeles Times. Visit latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.