Day of the Dead just won’t be the same without the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, but the 47-year-old arts space gave up the ghost Monday, and is now desperately trying to get an advance to continue existing in some form.

The colorful posters, Dia de Los Muertos activities, and pulsing drum music often seen around the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts at Mission and 24th streets was apparently concealing a deep, dark secret. The place was out of money, deep in financial crisis, and had laid off most of its staff in December.

The center apparently ran out of its last remaining operating funds on Tuesday of last week. This week, the center closed up shop completely on Monday, according to the local newspaper El Tecolote. This may well be the end of the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts (MCCLA).

The city owns the building, and the building is operated by the SF Arts Commission.

“Ideally, MCCLA would have continued,” an anonymous Arts Commission staffer told El Tecolote. “But we received records stating it had no staff and was insolvent, which violates the lease.”

A follow-up report in Mission Local spoke to the center’s interim director, Derek Jentzsch, who just quit, upon realizing there was no chance he would ever get paid.

“No money was received, or ever will be,” Jentzsch told Mission Local. “I waived any payment when it became clear that the center couldn’t pay any bills. Unfortunately, I can’t afford to work for free for very long. ”

So now the center is begging for its survival by asking the SF Arts Commission for an early disbursement of grant money that is scheduled to be disbursed in March of this year. But El Tecolote obtained an email from MCCLA to the Arts Commission that sure makes one wonder about their financial acumen over the past couple years.

“MCCLA is burning $50k/mo ($12k/week) more than revenue and has no revenue,” Jentzsch and a board member wrote in that email. They’re asking for an early disbursement of $300,000 in already-approved future funding to “keep the Center from folding before June 30, 2026.”

The building at 24th and Mission is already slated to be closed for two years for an earthquake retrofit. And this may not be the end of the MCCLA, they will negotiate for some sort of lifeline with the Arts Commission, as well as asking for a few hundred thou to be handed to them early.

But the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts is certainly not negotiating from a position of strength here.

Related: SF's Mexican Museum, Still In Financial Trouble, Misses Fundraising Deadline [SFist]

Image: Andrew D via Yelp