Future dog houses on Santa Monica beach?

Will Santa Monica’s sand castles turn into dog houses? Will dogs kick sand in the faces of 98-pound weaklings on Santa Monica’s beaches? Or will the dogs end up in the pound? Those are some of the questions Santa Monica residents may be asking, after the Santa Monica City Council voted yesterday to come up with a pilot program for designating a dog beach, and to present the program to state officials in Sacramento.

In dog-crazy Santa Monica, some locals, including the folks at Unleash the Beach, have been pushing the dog beach idea for years. However, you’re likely to find just as many people who think it’s a bad move, primarily for sanitary reasons. This is one issue where “step in it” is used literally rather than figuratively.

Additionally, the legal thicket involved in creating a beach for dogs in Santa Monica is one that most dogs wouldn’t even want to enter. In addition to trying to convince the folks in Sacramento, dog beach advocates must overcome opposition from, er, well-heeled groups such as Heal the Bay, whose members are concerned about those who would poison the atmosphere (again, literally not figuratively). And if the Coastal Commission wants to get involved? Just ask Venice homeowners or The Edge how accommodating the Commissioners are.

So, I would caution Santa Monica dog beach advocates: don’t hold your dog breath just yet, as this may take a while.

Photographer “discarted” whom I have at least heard of, had a really unfortunate run in with an L.A County Sheriff on the Red Line. Watch the video and try to hold your lunch down. The Sheriff quickly jumps from civility to hostility and accuses the photographer of being a terrorist and stops short accuses him of being an Al Qaeda operative out to blow up the L.A. Subway system.  Next thing we know the dude is cuffed and carted away.  For taking pictures.

Devils advocate for a moment.  When I’ve been asked what I’m doing with a camera I explain its personal use, artistic use and am usually left alone.  Maybe if he answered the same this would not have escalated the way it had?  Regardless of what he could have done differently CrimeScene blog reports the ACLU is involved and suing L.A. County Sheriff over this.

The core of “discarteds” innocence lies in the “Photographers Bill of Rights“.  I carry a copy in my camera bag just in case.

Image by WatchCaddy via a creative commons licence on flickr.

I was catching up on my blog reading and spotted this bit on Truth About Cars.  The maximum fine for driving and using a cell phone is increasing to a maximum of $528.  Bicyclists are being included for the first time as well though their fines are only a maximum of $50.  I think they should be on parity with each other but what the heck at least the disparity is being addressed now.

Link to the senate proposal HERE in pdf format.  Pages 2 and 3 are where the good stuff concerning the changes to the cell phone and driving proposals can be found.

I for one am glad to see some stiffer penalites coming for using the phone while driving.  What say you?

Some of the RVs and campers along 3rd Avenue in Venice

Consider this a parting shot from homeless advocates who have lost the latest battle in the long-running Venice parking war: the National Coalition for the Homeless has named Venice’s “oversize” vehicle nighttime parking restriction one of The 10 Most Ridiculous Anti-Homeless Laws in America.

I disagree that the Venice overnight (actually, just four hours) parking restriction for RVs and other “oversize” vehicles is either “ridiculous” or “anti-homeless”. In addition to the RV waste dumping issue mentioned by the Coalition, it’s not unreasonable for Venice homeowners and business owners, who pay local taxes, to have some relief from being blocked by RVs permanently camped on Venice streets. Likewise, Venice  visitors should be able to compete for parking spaces.

Moreover, this isn’t just a case of heartless homeowners. The Venice parking restrictions are accompanied by a program pushed by Los Angeles City Council Member Bill Rosendahl to provide safe off-street parking for the RVs that are required to move during the night. And finally, like it or not, parking one’s vehicle on an L.A. street for 72 or more consecutive hours, regardless of the vehicle’s size, is already illegal under Sec. 80.73.2 of the Los Angeles Municipal Code.

So is the Venice vehicle parking restriction a perfect solution? Of course not. Should more be done to assist homeless people who may be forced to live in their vehicles because they have no alternative to protect them from the elements? Definitely, and I’ll bet many Venice homeowners and business owners would agree.

And once again, I expect that we’ll hear more than this parting shot from the car campers’ side in the ongoing Venice parking war.

Blah, blah, blah...

Since finally discovering the serenitude of the Los Angeles River’s east bank south of Fletcher Drive last month, practically every time I’ve biked it since I’ve marveled at the chuckleworthy overwrought signage in the center of the pic at right (readably biggifiable when clicked), that smacks of having been crafted and finalized by a thinktank of city-contracted attorneys sequestered in a windowless sub-basement chamber deep below City Hall who felt that the discouragement of hanging out along the river with intent to hang out some more required much, much more than just a NO LOITERING sign.

Seriously: “kinder a fire?” And after that, what’s with the nonsensical “wash and cloth or bedding…”

I’m fascinated by the conceit that any transient would bother to read the entire screed, much less move on in abject law-abiding obedience.

Of course,  what would double the hoot would be if the entirely and appropriately to-the-point “NO DOGS OFF LEASH” sign to its right were similarly over-worded, like so:

LAMC SEC. 53.06.2 DOGS – RIVER BED:   No person shall, stand, sit, walk, lollygag, hustle, hop, skip, jump, amble, meander, flit, run, jog, trot, sprint, traverse, canter, drag, tumble, gallop, haul, boogie, truck, prance, tip-toe, or otherwise move forward, backward, sideways, or at any angle and at any speed, with a canine (heretofore referred to as “dog”) of any size, height, width, age, color, sex, pure or mixed breed, disposition and demeanor, without a leash attached to the dog and held securely by the aforementioned person while traversing the official bed of the Los Angeles River.

Hat tip to KTLA for greeting me with this wonderful news when I turned on the tube for news this morning.  Their news bit HERE.

The handmade sign on the front door of mobster James “Whitey” Bulger‘s former home on 3rd Street in Santa Monica reads: “Go Away. People Live Here”. That’s the message I’d like to send to mobsters in Los Angeles and across the country. But they seem to keep popping up near where I live, or vice versa.

Bulger’s apartment in the Princess Eugenia building (3 blocks from palisades overlooking the beach and rent-controlled at $ 1,145 per month) was in the same neighborhood as a family member of mine. I walk her dogs in that neighborhood every week. For all I know, the dogs have sniffed Whitey Bulger’s legs. I walked by the Princess Eugenia with the dogs again yesterday, and a bunch of people were milling about in front, including one man with two copies of “Hitman”, a just-released book about Bulger’s Boston crew (conspiracy theorists, are you listening?) that he had purchased down the street at Barnes and Noble on the Third Street Promenade.

Back in the late 80s, I lived in Boston, where I first heard about Whitey Bulger. I remember thinking, only in Boston could the (allegedly) most notorious, most vicious mobster have a brother who was a very prominent local politician, a state Senator and then president of the  Massachusetts Senate.

Before Boston, I grew up in the New York City suburbs, where I knew some (allegedly) “connected” guys and their wives, sons, and daughters. Contrary to the stereotypes and the portrayals in movies and on tv, including Jack Nicholson‘s psycopathic Bulger-based Frank Costello in the above clip from “The Departed” (warning: NSFW language), these folks weren’t necessarily doing violence. Often, if you read the indictments, they operated like the OPEC cartel, allegedly controlling particular industries or unions, fixing prices, doling out contracts, and skimming profits.

But even if you are not a direct victim of Whitey Bulger (allegedly) or other mobsters, they’re not exactly harmless entertainment. In many cases, their activities cause prices of goods and services, such as building construction, to be higher than they would be in the free market. In New York, it is called the “Mafia Tax”. And, needless to say, these folks don’t pay too many taxes on their ill-gotten gains. “This ain’t reality tv”, indeed. Only now there is a reality tv show called “Mob Wives”, but I’m not watching.

Instead, I’m glad Whitey Bulger was apprehended and sent back to Boston, and I would be happy if the rest of the mobsters would just go away. Because people live here.

Not only is this MINI parked in the handicap spot closest to the entrance of B&B Hardware in Culver City with no visible handicap parking tag, it also has the license plate “FIT2FIT”. Irony alert, or just coincidence?

Don’t you love all the local PD and FD jumping in on the Social Media bandwagon to keep us informed and engaged?

The message is a good one, Crimestoppers allow you to report information on crimes anywhere in metro LA anonymously if you so desire.   Maybe this might be a way for those thugs that hammered so badly on Brian Stow, the Giants Fan who is still in a coma weeks after the fact to be caught.

Hat tip to my friends on the Arcadia PD who twatted this out a bit ago.