Kahren Harutyunyan, the Glendale-based promoter and professional boxer who submitted the request to use the auditorium, said the ban has stifled local development of boxing and forced homegrown boxers out of the city.
“No one can showcase their talent in the city,” Harutyunyan said. For an area that has produced several successful amateur and professional boxers — such as boxer Vanes Martirosyan, who represented the United States in the 2004 Olympics — that’s a shame, Harutyunyan said. Allowing boxers to fight in their hometown would not only bring the community together, but draw in outside promoters, and with them, more media attention and outside money to a cash-strapped city.
“It just does not make any sense to have this ban,” he said.
The move by Harutyunyan comes at a time when the city is especially receptive to exploring new ways to generate revenue at its underperforming auditorium at 1401 N. Verdugo Road, which last fiscal year claimed a loss of about $400,000.
“I do see an opening with the budget situation, but we don’t need a deficit to come up with such a great idea,” he said.
With 10,000 square feet of open, usable space on the building’s second floor, the auditorium is one of the few, if not only, venues in Glendale that could host a professional fight, said George Chapjian, director of the Parks, Recreation and Community Services Department, which manages the space.
While the logistics and potential impacts of bringing professional boxing matches had yet to be fully examined, the idea seemed promising on its face, Chapjian said.
“I think it would be an opportunity for us,” he said.
