Re “The $700 scratch that united a neighborhood,” Jan. 2 issue

I find it bewildering and incredibly tone deaf that this article was published. A restaurant chef’s $145,000 car gets a minor scratch and her husband gleefully takes it upon himself to find the culprit who caused it.

Just when you think the article can’t get any worse, it does. The incident is treated as if it is a high crime. The very fact that the whole neighborhood galvanizes behind him to find the perpetrator only underscores the term “First World Problems.” Krikorian’s Frank Capra-esque style gets increasingly sickening and you start to realize that this writer is seriously invested in his “only in Hancock Park” story. He joyfully assigns “Universal Good Person Points” to the various wealthy folks who join him in regarding the incident as serious as he does, [and] the stop everything [approach] to isolate at what time it could have happened. Let’s meet them: “Shahnaz, who drives a Maserati SUV,” a prominent and helpful lawyer, a former LAPD police officer and robbery detective, and Valvoline employees who spend hours upon hours looking at surveillance tape.

We’re talking about a small scratch on a well-to-do woman’s vehicle. But apparently, it’s all hands on deck. This is a story designed for the white upper class audience that dines at his wife’s restaurant. But wait, there’s more. Let’s knock on the door of a Jewish family, with Moshe “surprisingly, kind and pleasant.” They get a pizza for fessing up that their daughter caused the grave damage. And so the story is tied up in a neat little bow and we see that yes, there are still people living in a bubble and with nothing better to do then help their wife save $1,000 on a minor scratch for a car that probably shouldn’t have been parked in a narrow alley in the first place.

In all seriousness, does this story warrant three-quarters of a page, and how is it really newsworthy or relevant to the world we living in now? If I lived somewhere south of Wilshire, would the LAPD and some detectives help me find out who scratched my Toyota Camry?

Bertrand Pellegrin

Los Angeles

Editor’s note: This story was a tongue-in-cheek account of how “something” brought a neighborhood together. Neighbors who didn’t know each other became a community. Your letter implies the space was wasted – it obviously wasn’t wasted on you, since you read the entire piece. And finally, the writer is not married to the chef – she is his girlfriend. Thanks for your letter and we urge you to get to know your neighbors as well.