The size of the Los Angeles City Council should increase from 15 to 25 seats, the city’s Charter Reform Commission recommended Thursday.
On a 9-2 vote, the commission backed the council expansion, with supporters saying that smaller ethnic groups, including Black and Asian American and Pacific Islander residents, would be better represented.
The council has consisted of 15 members since 1925, when the city had fewer than 600,000 residents, compared with 3.9 million today.
“I think we owe the people of Los Angeles to walk out of this room saying that we are a commission that’s concerned about equity, that we are a commission that is concerned about Black and AAPI folks who live in this city,” said Commissioner James M. Thomas, who supported the expansion.
The commission also recommended ranked choice voting, where voters list candidates in order of preference, for municipal elections beginning in 2032. The city should also establish a new position, chief financial officer, which would essentially be a title change for what is now called the city administrative officer, the commission recommended.
By April 2, the commission, which has been meeting since last July, must send all its recommendations to the City Council on changes to the city’s governing charter. The council will then vote on which changes will go before city voters as ballot measures in November.
Thursday’s meeting was packed with supporters of City Controller Kenneth Mejia, who feared that the commission would gut his office’s watchdog role.
Among the CFO’s duties would be preparing the city budget, advising the mayor on fiscal policy and producing revenue forecasts — duties currently under the CAO.
Tim Riley, owner of Heavy Water Coffee Shop in Chinatown, said trust in government is at an all-time low and urged the commission to keep the controller’s powers intact.
“Kenneth has been the only form of government that we have felt has represented us as a community,” Riley said.
City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo spoke briefly and confirmed his support for designating the CAO as the city’s chief financial officer, without impacting the controller’s office. The CFO role recommended by the commission does not take away any duties from the controller.
In 1925, each of the 15 City Council members represented about 38,000 residents. Now, each council district has an average of 265,000 residents. If the council grows to 25, each member would represent roughly 159,000 residents.
The commission did not discuss whether the council members’ salaries and office budgets should remain the same, potentially increasing costs for taxpayers.
Nick Caputo, who has been chronicling the charter reform commission‘s progress online, advocated during public comment for the commission to endorse more than 23 seats. The commission had debated for weeks about whether to go as low as 23 seats or as high as 31, settling on 25 as a compromise.
With smaller council districts, Caputo said, residents will be represented by people who know their neighborhoods better.
“I’m happy that they did go to 25,” Caputo said Friday. “I think that would be a tremendous boost for not just representation, but also you’ll get real specialists.”
Commissioner Carla Fuentes noted that three City Council members — Nithya Raman, Ysabel Jurado and Heather Hutt — have publicly supported expanding the council to 25.
“This is a huge moment for the commission,” Chairperson Raymond Meza said after Thursday night’s meeting. “We have been hearing from hundreds of stakeholders, academics, members of the public, other interested parties — and to be able to begin drafting charter language for the City Council to consider is pretty momentous.”
During the debate on ranked choice voting, Commissioner Diego Andrades explained that the city would no longer hold a primary election, which would save money. Instead, all candidates would run in a general election.
Commissioner Christina Sanchez expressed concern that non-English speaking voters and those in under-served communities might have trouble understanding the complexities, which drew ire from the crowd.
“Are you calling us stupid?” two people said.
The commission also passed a recommendation that the city should approve an ordinance for language accessibility and educating residents about the new voting system.
Two days earlier, the commission voted unanimously to bifurcate the duties of the city attorney, currently an elected official who prosecutes misdemeanors and represents the city in civil litigation. Under the commission’s proposal, an appointed city attorney would take over the civil litigation duties, while an elected city prosecutor would handle the misdemeanors.
The decision to bifurcate the position came after consulting with good governance groups, the public and city departments, Andrades said. The current system allows a city attorney eyeing higher office to potentially offer bad advice to a sitting mayor, and conflicts of interest could occur on issues like police-related settlements and misconduct, he said.
Times staff writer Dave Zahniser contributed to this report.
At more than 2,700 feet, “The Great Wall of Los Angeles” is one of the longest murals in the world and among the most important public artworks in the city. Created by artist Judy Baca between 1974 and 1984, the mural is a groundbreaking depiction of Southern California history from the viewpoint of women and minorities and a potent national symbol at the intersection of art and activism.
Baca’s leadership of the collaborative project made her a legend in the art world. She is the co-founder and artistic director of Social and Public Art Resource Center, or SPARC, a community mural nonprofit and has been hailed as one of the most influential figures of L.A.’s Chicano muralism. “The Great Wall” is on the National Register of Historic Places, and Baca is a National Medal of Arts recipient.
But now Baca, 79, has come under criticism from some of those who have worked most closely with her in recent years.
In interviews, 10 former SPARC employees — including two managers — accuse Baca of using her nonprofit to benefit her private, for-profit art practice, Judy Baca Inc. They allege Baca personally benefited from a $5-million Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant to expand “The Great Wall,” sold the project’s archives to the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art at a large profit to herself, and has blurred the line between her nonprofit and for-profit endeavors.
Baca and SPARC’s board chair, Zojeila Flores, vigorously deny any impropriety or misuse of funds. In an interview, they said grant funds were used appropriately and that Baca maintains a mutually beneficial profit-sharing agreement with SPARC.
Baca ascribes the criticism to disgruntled former employees and hopes SPARC can finish its work on the mural “without more of this sort of rage and hostility and anger and hate.” It’s on schedule to be completed by 2028, she said, showing The Times sections of the mural in progress at a rented space at Bergamot Station Arts Center, an acclaimed, high-end gallery in Santa Monica.
Artist Judy Baca talks to the media after starting to paint a new section of “The Great Wall of Los Angeles” as part of a LACMA exhibition on Oct. 26, 2023.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Baca supporters believe she is a visionary who has used the reputation she earned with “The Great Wall” to continue lifting underserved communities.
“I don’t know how to better serve a community than to represent them well,” said Kelly Watts, who, as a teen in the 1980s, participated in painting “The Great Wall” as a student artist. Watts now lives in Tennessee and said she isn’t familiar with the inner workings of SPARC but that what matters to her is Baca’s guidance over the years. “Judy has been a mentor of mine and has always been a really positive influence on me and my growth as an artist.”
The $5-million grant
At the root of the allegations is Baca’s 2017 announcement that she intended to expand “The Great Wall” to include hundreds of feet of new imagery, representing history from the 1960s up to the present day. The mural, which is in a floodwater channel that runs through the leafy Valley Glen neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley, originally concluded with depictions of two Olympic gold medalists, track star Wilma Rudolph and Native American runner Billy Mills. Baca also sought to add interpretive stations, illuminate the mural at night and build a pedestrian bridge over the Tujunga Wash flood control channel to provide a better view of the work.
Judy Baca painting “The Great Wall of Los Angeles” in 1983.
(SPARC Archives / SPARCinLA.org)
Baca’s goals were boosted in 2021 when the Mellon Foundation — one of the largest and most important nonprofit funders of art projects in the nation — supported “The Great Wall” plans with a $5-million grant to be paid over three years, ending in 2024. The grant was distributed through Mellon’s newly formed $250-million Monuments Project “to express, elevate, and preserve the stories of those who have often been denied historical recognition.” (Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Emmett Till Interpretive Center in Mississippi and other noted institutions also received separate grants.)
Among those who question Baca’s stewardship of the grant are Pete Galindo, a former director of the Great Wall of Los Angeles Institute, which SPARC formed to oversee the mural expansion, and Carmen Garcia, who served as director of SPARC for six months ending in early 2023. Both alleged Baca required SPARC employees to also do work for Judy Baca Inc., Baca’s private business for her art.
Garcia resigned after repeatedly raising concerns about alleged misappropriation of Mellon grant funds, which Baca denied, and calling for the board to investigate Baca. She said she was “forcefully” led out of the building.
Galindo was fired in February 2022 after less than a year in his role. He alleges Baca terminated him in retaliation for questions he raised about how she was using the grant and objecting to her work assignments. Before his Great Wall Institute role, Galindo said he had known Baca for nearly 30 years, beginning as a UCLA student in 1996 and later working in various roles on a variety of SPARC initiatives, including as a community public art director.
According to documents reviewed by The Times, including Galindo’s offer letter and a spreadsheet with Mellon grant line items, Galindo’s $75,000 salary was paid through SPARC and the grant, which stipulates the money be used “to support the preservation, activation, and expansion of one of the country’s largest monuments to interracial harmony through civic engagement and muralist training.” But Galindo alleged Baca assigned him work outside SPARC and the Great Wall: to help sell her personal artwork, aid in fixing a termite infestation in her archives and help to manage the production of a mural titled “La Memoria de la Tierra: UCLA,” which was not related to “The Great Wall.”
The Times reviewed a series of text messages between Galindo and Baca in which Baca asked Galindo to help with jobs outside his Great Wall duties, including dealing with termites. The messages included a question to Baca from Galindo confirming she’d like the team to “print the UCLA mural at scale for review.” Baca replies that she will call momentarily. Another group chat between Galindo and two other SPARC employees is about meeting to move Baca’s belongings out of her office at UCLA in 2021.
Baca denied Galindo’s allegations, including that she asked Galindo to help manage the UCLA mural — a task outside of the Mellon grant’s purview. She said the project was brought to her personally and she referred the work to SPARC. The mural was completed on-site through a research and teaching facility known as the Digital/Mural Lab, she said. SPARC received money for the project, Baca wrote in a statement, although Baca got paid a commission — an “established practice” at SPARC for paying artists for their work.
In an interview, SPARC board chair Flores declined to say how much Baca earned from that project or Baca’s specific commission rate. However, on a hypothetical $200,000 project she said about $58,000 could go to SPARC for costs and fees. The remaining $142,000 could go to other vendors and Baca.
For decades, Baca brought in dozens of commissions to SPARC without being paid, SPARC said in a statement. The board voted to change that in recent years with a so-called “fiscal sponsorship arrangement,” which allows paid projects to piggyback on SPARC’s tax-exempt status. In this case, Baca earns a commission and SPARC receives funds for employee work on projects.
SPARC’S website currently lists nine board members. Baca and Flores are included, as is Mercedes Gertz, who rents an art studio in SPARC’s building. Baca’s cousin, Anthony Salcido, serves as the board’s finance chair. Bookkeeper Gloria Thompson is also Baca’s cousin.
“Mr. Salcido began working with SPARC only after consultation with legal counsel and Board approval, with Judy recused from the vote,” Flores wrote in an email. “Ms. Thompson began with SPARC as a volunteer and later became bookkeeper following formal consultation with legal.”
In 2022, after he was fired from SPARC, Galindo wrote a letter to Emil J. Kang, then the Mellon Foundation’s program director for arts and culture, to allege that Baca had misused the Mellon grant money by asking him to do work for her personal business.
“Throughout my time as the Great Wall of Los Angeles Institute Director, she focused my work on her personal exhibitions, sale of artworks, training her personal assistant, overseeing commissions, press and documentation,” Galindo wrote in the letter, concluding, “While Judy’s contribution to the field over the years cannot be denied, her treatment of employees, unequal pay scales and overall exploitation of staff and artists is anathema to the values and ideals of social justice movements and the monuments they inspire.”
Baca said she could not comment on personnel matters, but in a statement, SPARC said, “We strive to be fair and professional in all our personnel matters.”
Judy Baca poses in front of her artwork “La Salsera” at LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes in downtown Los Angeles in 2024.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
Galindo said he did not receive a reply to his letter from Kang or the Mellon Foundation.
The Mellon Foundation issued a statement to The Times, confirming it had received Galindo’s letter, which “was handled in accordance with Mellon policy on third party complaints about our grantees.” The foundation added that it “does not comment on issues pertaining to internal matters of its grantees.” SPARC’s grant status never changed.
Garcia, who was hired as SPARC’s executive director after Galindo left the organization, remembered dealing with heightened inquiries from Mellon representatives, including culture program director Kang. Once, she said, the foundation asked SPARC for additional information on how grant money was being spent.
SPARC said in its response to The Times that such questions from funders were routine.
“Mellon consistently reviews all of its grantees’ performance, as is standard for nonprofit funders,” SPARC said.
Baca told The Times that she was unaware that Mellon had raised questions about how the grant was being used. However, in a text exchanged with Garcia in 2023 and reviewed by The Times, she indicated she had spoken to Kang at a National Medal of Arts event in Washington, D.C.
“They will ask us to improve some things but generally we had a long discussion and lots of laughs about me ‘hating the interrogation by a bunch of white me[n],’” Baca wrote. “He got a laugh out of it and knew they were a pain in the a—.”
When asked about the text she sent to Garcia, Baca said, “It was an informal conversation at a White House reception. We didn’t talk about the specifics of the grant itself. The conversation really was about the review process.”
Who should profit from ‘The Great Wall’?
Work on “The Great Wall of Los Angeles” began in 1974 and was completed over five summers by Baca with the help of many now well-known artists including Isabel Castro, Ulysses Jenkins, Judithe Hernández, Patssi Valdez, Margaret Garcia, Christina Schlesinger and Judy Chicago. More than 400 young people and their families — many from underserved neighborhoods — also contributed to the project, including 80 youths recruited from the juvenile justice system.
The collective effort made “The Great Wall” a work of social justice, and in 1976 led to the founding of Baca’s nonprofit, SPARC, with its stated mission of producing, preserving and promoting, “activist and socially relevant artwork,” and fostering “artistic collaborations that empower communities who face marginalization or discrimination.”
“The Great Wall of Los Angeles” on April 9, 2025.
(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)
Some former SPARC employees feel that Baca has failed to honor the community that toiled to create “The Great Wall.” They have expressed concern that Baca has benefited unfairly from the project, and, in particular, the sale of work related to it.
Flores disagrees, writing, “For 50 years, SPARC has used art to empower communities facing marginalization and/or discrimination. This currently includes immigrant populations traumatized by ICE. Further, SPARC ensures that working artists can remain in Venice, a neighborhood with deep artistic and cultural roots.”
When “The Great Wall” was originally copyrighted in 1983, authorship of the work was attributed to both “Judith F. Baca” and the “Social Public Art Resource Center.” In 2011, however, after a restoration effort led by SPARC in which the mural was completely painted over, the project was again copyrighted, this time solely under Baca’s name. Former employees question the ethics of Baca’s profiting off a celebrated community effort, but Flores said Baca has always retained ownership of her work and that, “Owning a copyright is not the same as owning an artwork itself.” Baca, Flores said, evenly splits copyright licensing fees with SPARC.
Baca sold “The Great Wall” archives to the Lucas Museum in 2021. The sale included more than 350 objects and ephemera, including concept drawings, site plans, sketches and correspondence with community leaders, scholars, historians and collaborators.
A Lucas Museum representative declined to comment on how much the museum paid for the archive or whether or not the acquisition was made from Baca or SPARC.
Galindo said he was told by former SPARC executive director Carlos Rogel that it sold for $1.5 million. Rogel declined a request for comment. Another source close to SPARC, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation, also said the sale was for $1.5 million.
Baca and Flores declined to say what the archives sold for. In an emailed response, Flores wrote that Baca was the owner of “The Great Wall” archive and was not paid by SPARC to produce that work.
“Nonetheless, following the sale, and although Judy was not required to do so, she generously donated $521,000 to SPARC,” Flores wrote.
Galindo and other former employees also expressed concern about Baca’s rising salary and believe it is out of proportion with SPARC’s mission of uplifting and aiding underserved communities and youth. In the two years prior to receiving the Mellon grant, Baca made $42,916 and $50,000, respectively. The year after SPARC received the grant, Baca’s salary rose to $215,000. In 2023, she made $236,149, and the following year, $211,004. The increase in Baca’s salary is discussed in an internal email and executive board meeting minutes reviewed by The Times, which state that SPARC’s board voted to set Baca’s annual compensation to be commensurate with what Baca was paid before she retired as a UCLA professor and that the additional money should come from the Mellon grant. Records of her 2025 and 2026 salaries were not currently available.
“The Great Wall of Los Angeles” depicts the history of California through the 1950s. An expansion to be completed in 2028 will add scenes from the 1960s to 1990s.
(Carlin Stiehl/For The Times)
SPARC said in a statement that Baca’s salary “is lower than the market rate for similar non-profit CEOs and lower than the market value commissioning rate for artist Judy Baca who is the author of The Great Wall Mural.”
Ongoing work on “The Great Wall” is currently done by a variety of people. For the new panels, which begin with the civil rights era of the 1960s, research is done by Baca and her team from the Great Wall Institute (there is currently no institute director, according to SPARC’s website). From there, Baca creates rough drawings, and drafts are made by artists from SPARC’s Digital/Mural Lab. Baca suggests edits and gives directions, and later she will add her own personal touches.
Eventually, colorations are submitted by various artists, and Baca does one final hand coloration of the entire piece. During The Times’ visit to see the mural expansion in progress, two artists were painting on sketches that had been fine-tuned by Baca and printed onto giant panels. These panels will eventually be attached to the wall of the flood water channel where “The Great Wall” resides, Flores said.
Former SPARC digital mural artist Toria Maldonado alleged it was not always clear if the work they were doing was for SPARC or for Judy Baca Inc. They were asked on occasion to work on assignments that appeared to be for the benefit of the latter, Maldonado said.
Maldonado said they and two other SPARC employees once redrew the 1960s segment of “The Great Wall” for a private collector. Baca, Maldonado said, “was selling a print, and wanted to refine it, and had us do that assignment.” Maldonado shared a checklist with The Times featuring notes about what work needed to be done on the segment, including shading Malcolm X’s hair.
In an email, Flores called Maldonado’s allegations, “factually inaccurate” and “misleading.”
“Judy was the owner of the segment referenced. It was hand-colored by Judy and assistants whom Judy paid personally, and this work was done in her personal studio,” Flores wrote. Baca’s studio is a Frank Gehry-designed space at her Venice home.
Maldonado said that they had never been to Baca’s personal studio and that their salary was always paid through SPARC.
From May through August 2023, segments of “The Great Wall” were exhibited at Jeffrey Deitch Gallery in L.A. Baca didn’t sell any works during that show, Flores wrote in an email, but in 2025, “a coloration by Judy’s hand of a segment presented in that show was sold. This work was created in Judy’s private studio and owned by her.” Baca declined to disclose how much the segment sold for. SPARC began showing more of “The Great Wall” expansion in February at Jeffrey Deitch Gallery. The original panels will not be for sale, but “if a work of Judy’s is sold at the show, she receives the proceeds as the owner of the work,” Flores wrote.
The room where art happens
Galindo and Garcia also alleged that SPARC inappropriately leases its premises to board member Gertz and others.
Since 1977, SPARC has been housed in a former Venice police station and jail, a 1920s Art Deco building owned by the city of Los Angeles. In 2000, the city signed a lease allowing SPARC to use the building for free until 2055. That agreement stipulates the property be used for “production, exhibition, promotion and distribution of and education about public art on a nonprofit basis.” SPARC can sublease portions of its building to those engaged in similar work with a city official’s approval. It must submit annual financial reports to the city with earnings from such deals.
The Times reviewed Instagram posts made by Gertz touting a 2023 exhibition of her personal art at SPARC, another in 2024 advertising a holiday sale, as well as one that shows her working in her studio inside the building. SPARC said Gertz pays market rate for her studio but declined to specify how much that is, only that it is, “equivalent to the rent paid by all the other artists who sublet space in the building.”
Judy Baca outside her Venice nonprofit, the Social and Public Art Resource Center, better known as SPARC, in 2021.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
According to documents obtained through a California Public Records Act request, the city only has one sublease on file for SPARC from 1991. When asked if the city had approved SPARC’s deal with Gertz, Amy Benson, the director of the city’s real estate services division, wrote in an email that she had no further information to provide.
Flores wrote in an email that she was unable to speak to the specifics of a question about whether or not SPARC submits annual financial reports, inclusive of its subleasing income, to the city but noted, “we will follow up to make sure that the City has the documents you mention.” According to the latest available tax filings, SPARC made $64,991 in “rental property income” in 2024 and $57,590 in 2023.
Asked if Gertz’s use of SPARC for her personal, for-profit art practice, violates SPARC’s understanding of the lease, Flores wrote, “Our understanding is that our lease allows any use of the premises that is reasonably consistent with our nonprofit mission… Ms. Gertz uses her studio to weave textiles and also to lead art workshops for immigrants in the community, an activity that we think is entirely in keeping with our mission.”
Baca has also sold her personal art for profit at SPARC. When Baca’s art is for sale she “is treated like all other artists” and receives 60% of profits, the nonprofit said in a statement.
“I’m certain there are hundreds of artists in Los Angeles making socially engaged work who would benefit from a solo exhibition at SPARC,” Galindo wrote in an email.
Feb. 19 (UPI) — The Commission of Fine Arts has unanimously approved plans for President Donald Trump‘s almost 90,000-square-foot White House ballroom plans, the first hurdle in starting the building project.
The commission, whose members were all appointed by Trump, including his executive assistant, Chamberlain Harris, 26. The original architect of the ballroom recused himself from the vote. Trump fired all the previous members in October.
But now, the project must win approval from the National Capital Planning Commission, which could vote on March 5.
“This is a facility that is desperately needed for over 150 years, and it’s beautiful,” The Washington Post reported Commission Chair Rodney Mims Cook Jr. said.
But the CFA’s secretary said comments have been negative.
“In two decades of casework here, I’ve never seen as much public engagement on this. We’ve literally gotten, in the past week or so, more than 2,000 various messages,” said Thomas Luebke, CFA secretary, CBS News reported. “The vast, vast majority is negative, in general.”
Trump initially said the construction would cost $200 million and would be funded by private donations. He later said the project could cost twice that amount, but donors would pay for it. Officials from the National Trust for Historic Preservation challenged the construction in federal court and sought an injunction to stop the build. The judge refused the injunction but ordered the administration to undergo a review process.
The Capital Planning Commission is led by Will Scharf, a White House staff secretary appointed by Trump. Two other White House officials — James Blair and Stuart Levenbach — are also on the commission.
Luebke read a summary of the comments to commissioners, CBS reported. He cited demolition without permits or oversight, a scale that will “dwarf the White House,” lack of transparency in funding and contracts and a “fundamental miscarriage of democratic principles.”
“The ballroom seems to shout power,” one commenter wrote, Luebke said.
Harris responded, “This is sort of like the greatest country in the world. It’s the greatest house in the world and we want it to be the greatest ballroom in the world.”
The public comments, Luebke said, were “overwhelmingly in opposition — over 99%.”
President Donald Trump speaks alongside Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency Lee Zeldin in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Thursday. The Trump administration has announced the finalization of rules that revoke the EPA’s ability to regulate climate pollution by ending the endangerment finding that determined six greenhouse gases could be categorized as dangerous to human health. Photo by Will Oliver/UPI | License Photo
The European Commission has announced an investigation into online retailer Shein. File Photo by Hannibal Hanschke/EPA
Feb. 17 (UPI) — The European Commission announced Tuesday that it has opened formal proceedings against online retailer Shein “for its addictive design, the lack of transparency of recommender systems, as well as the sale of illegal products, including child sexual abuse material.”
The Commission said in a press release it was specifically investigating: the systems Shein has to limit the sale of illegal products in the European Union; risks linked to the addictive design of the service and the systems to mitigate those risks; and transparency of the recommender systems that it uses to propose content and products to users.
Under the Digital Services Act, Shein must disclose the parameters used in its recommender systems and it must provide users with at least one easily accessible option that is not based on profiling for each recommender system, the release said. The EU said it found that Shein only explained its recommender “in a very general manner.”
“In the EU, illegal products are prohibited — whether they are on a store shelf or on an online marketplace,” Henna Virkkunen, executive vice president for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, in a statement. “The Digital Services Act keeps shoppers safe, protects their wellbeing and empowers them with information about the algorithms they are interacting with. We will assess whether Shein is respecting these rules and their responsibility.”
If the investigation finds that Shein has broken EU law, Brussels can impose interim measures, accept binding commitments from Shein or give a non-compliance decision that could lead to large fines, EuroNews reported.
Shein released a statement saying it always “cooperates fully” with the Commission and the Coimisiún na Meán, the Digital Services Coordinator for Ireland involved in the investigation.
“Over the last few months, we have continued to invest significantly in measures to strengthen our compliance with the DSA. These include comprehensive systemic-risk assessments and mitigation frameworks, enhanced protections for younger users, and ongoing work to design our services in ways that promote a safe and trusted user experience,” Shein said in the statement. “Protecting minors and reducing the risk of harmful content and behaviors are central to how we develop and operate our platform. We share the authorities’ objective of ensuring a safe and trusted online environment and will continue to engage constructively.”
The retailer has recently come under fire in France because, in November, it was found to be selling weapons and sex dolls designed to look like young children. Around the same time, Shein opened its first brick-and-mortar shop in Paris to protests for its sale of the dolls and its environmental impact.
Singapore-based Shein issued a statement on Nov. 4 saying it had removed the dolls and permanently banned “all seller accounts linked to illegal or non-compliant sex-doll products.”
A Shein spokesperson said in December that the platform would not reopen in France right away. It was doing an internal audit to find weaknesses in its marketplace operations.
