Results tagged “sanpedro”

A late-morning shooting in San Pedro yesterday left a 17-year-old dead--he was shot in the head--and police closing down a neighborhood in search of suspects. By evening, police had two suspects in custody. The incident took place on the 1800 block of Cabrillo Avenue near 17th Street.

              

Ports O' Call restaurant, which is in Ports O' Call Village in San Pedro, has an immediate strike against it. It is a common belief that restaurants with views always suck (cough Castaway cough). Even if in this case it is just a view of oil drums and tankers. Then to really make a seasoned diner nervous, they have weddings there. Like all the time. Sometimes two at a time. Would you like the pistachio-crusted chicken or the poached salmon with dill sauce? Stop running! It's OK. Come back. They have cake.

It looks like the Port of Los Angeles, which brings in billions for the city, is behind on cleaning up the popular but chronically polluted Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro. It looks likely that the city will miss a federal compliance deadline next Spring and people will be enjoying their summer swims in some yucky water. "Starting April 1, Cabrillo Beach must meet fecal bacteria water quality standards 100% of the time from April1 -Oct. 31. The liability to the City of Los Angeles to comply with the water quality requirements could be substantial, yet the pace to complete the Cabrillo projects in time to comply with the deadlines continues to be far too slow," explains Mark Gold of Heal the Bay. He says a contract management “short cut” is the culprit in slowing this project down. "As a result of poor time-management by the Port, the city will likely be out of compliance with the beach water quality standards when the April 1 deadline arrives. The end result? The public will continue to swim in polluted waters and the city will face tens of thousands of dollars in potential liability."

Update: The beach was found safe and was opened as of 3:30 p.m. 3 million gallons of tertiary wastewater were accidently released into the ocean yesterday prompting officials to close the water at Inner and Outer Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro. Tertiary wastewater has already undergone treatment to remove harmful waste products, but may be still dangerous. “We are asking people to avoid entering or swimming in the ocean in the area immediately surrounding Inner and Outer Cabrillo Beach,” said Jonathan E. Fielding, MD, MPH, Director of Public Health and Health Officer. “Our first priority is to protect the health and safety of the people who visit the beach and water areas. Once we determine bacteria levels in the water do not pose a threat to the public’s health, we will remove the beach closure.” The water is being tested this morning and if found to be okay, the beach will reopen around noon. Want to see what happens when you do swim in nasty water? This guy now has a pacemaker:

As part of a city-wide, Mayor-back, and City Council-approved plan that went into effect more than a month ago, parking meter rates in San Pedro got a significant hike--in fact, the rates quadrupled, and the applicable time extended into evening hours. This left not only motorists flustered, but merchants as well, who are already facing a decline in revenue thanks to the economy.

"There must be a believer out there, one with both the foresight and resources to keep our city from becoming a wasteland of corporate chain stores, uninspired conformity and heartless mediocrity, and we think saving Equator Books would be a very good place to start," wrote Max Wheeler, part-owner of Equator, on the Huffington Post yesterday.

Disney Cruise Line and the Port of Los Angeles announced today that in 2011, Disney's "Wonder" will be setting sail from our shore. The vessel is one of a trio of ships currently offering family-friendly cruises from Port Canaveral, Florida; no itinerary has been announced, but the Mexican Riviera is the rumored destination. Bringing another cruise ship to LA is a revenue booster for the city: "It will bring about 250,000 passengers through the Port of Los Angeles, create about 2,600 new jobs, and yield for L.A. and the state of California $7 million in state and local taxes," boasts L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Disney's "Wonder" has 875 staterooms and a crew size of 945, per their official site. It's smaller than Royal Caribbean's Mariner of the Seas, who made the move from Florida last month and is now sailing from San Pedro.

Post by Willy Blackmore for LAist

In addition to participating in City Council meetings via videofeed at Van Nuys City Hall, you can at San Pedro City Hall starting next week. “We understand that distance and traffic can make it difficult for Harbor area residents to express their comments and concerns before City Council,” said Councilwoman Hahn in a statement this afternoon. "This is an effort to ensure that their concerns are represented fairly.” The six-month video conferencing pilot program will launch on March 25, 2009. It will be available on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, at 10:00am at San Pedro City Hall, 638 S. Beacon Street in San Pedro.

Depressed lovers be warned, on Saturday the LAPD's South Traffic Division will be adding extra patrols to hunt down drunk drivers in the Harbor Area (San Pedro, Wilmington, Gateway). Why? "Harbor Area has experienced a 133% increase in DUI related traffic collisions in 2009 as compared to 2008," the LAPD explains in a notice. Unlike checkpoints, these "DUI saturation patrols" will roam the streets.

       

San Pedro local, music maven and all around guy Mike Watt kayaks off the coast of San Pedro practically every morning with his camera. These photos were not taken this morning, but we thought it'd be a fun thing to share to start off your Friday with. Enjoy.

Caltrans will be installing some overhead signs over the next few days, so that means access between San Pedro and Long Beach will be cut off overnight starting Tuesday. From 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights, the bridge, or the Seaside Freeway (the 47), will be closed in both directions between Ocean and Harbor. Also, the Long Beach bound Harbor Blvd. on-ramp will be closed from 6 p.m. to 7 a.m. each of those days.

As the downpour lightens across Los Angeles, things are still not back to normal for the region. The Los Angels Fire Department closed over two and a half miles of streets around the Sepulveda Basin in the Valley this morning due to flooding, mandatory evacuations are in place in Orange County and the roof of a building in Anaheim collapsed.

Three men were swept into the ocean this afternoon below the cliffs of Point Fermin in San Pedro. Two of them were able to escape to shore with relatively little injury, but one had to be rescued by a Los Angeles Fire Department boat. He's listed in critical condition. Rescues around Point Fermin are pretty common as the area seems much safer than it actually is.

With around 84% of all cancer risk from air pollution due to diesel exhaust, the Port of Los Angeles Clean Truck Program began today immediately banning 2,000 trucks made before 1989. And By 2012, the new law will ban any truck that doesn’t meet the cleanest 2007 emission standards, ultimately taking 16,000 dirty-diesel trucks off the road. The trucking industry fought the plan saying it would "place an unconstitutional and unfair economic burden on port truckers." Compliance checks were in order today but cargo was reportedly moving smoothly.

                                   

Last weekend, the 10th Annual Port of Los Angeles Lobster Festival took place in San Pedro. Last year's festival featured performances by notable local indie artists Eagle and Talon (MySpace), Great Northern (MySpace), and Bodies of Water (MySpace), and this year's lineup was no different with The Henry Clay People (MySpace), Craft Club (MySpace), Oliver Future (MySpace), Rocket (MySpace), Robert Francis (MySpace), The Weather Underground (MySpace), and The Monolators (MySpace) filling out the majority of the three-day roster.

Caught in San Pedro at the fountain with the dancing waters show. See a video of it in action below.

There are a lot of falls over at and near Point Fermin and the Sunken City, whether it is accidental or suicidal. The battle for safety precautions over natural views of the ocean can be a contentious one with the community. There comes a point where you can't stop people from killing themselves or just being stupid by climbing over the fence to get that "perfect shot," only to tumble down the cliff and now subject of a local TV news' helicopter shot.

One person is dead (now reported as a 50-year-old woman) after they went over the side of a cliff near Point Fermin 1:40 p.m. this afternoon in San Pedro (map). No preliminary reports on how this happened are out yet, but this cliff is no stranger to incidents like today (Update: An officer at the Harbor Division said that it appears to be a suicide).

A man shot in San Pedro early this morning later died at the hospital. It happened at 2:43 a.m. this morning when a Hispanic male in an SUV drove-by another Hispanic male and shot him at 1125 S. Gaffey Street. The suspect then crashed his car and ran away on foot. The LAPD now has the suspect's vehicle, but so far, no witnesses have come forward and further details are pending, according to Officer Mobasser, a spokesperson for the LAPD.

Papadakis Taverna at Sixth and Centre streets in downtown San Pedro is a popular high-profile Greek restaurant that has served up food for the past 35 years to locals and celebs alike. Now, the owner is looking to sell it, but not anyone can buy it, according to the Daily Breeze. The Papadakis would like someone to buy it and keep the restaurant going. The asking price is $500,000 for the restaurant itself, which includes most everything inside plus $2.5 million for the property. This is all much better news than than a Marie Callender's taking over the space, something which was a possibility some months ago.

There's a common law that most bicyclists know in Los Angeles: sidewalk riding is legal as long as you do not have "a willful or wanton disregard for the safety of persons or property." LAMC 56.15 also "disallows the riding of bicycles on Ocean Front Walk in Venice."

In the name of safety and a smoother ride, Caltrans is working on a is $7 million bridge deck resurfacing project. Therefore, that means some day and night time closures (pdf). Full and partial closures will occur Saturday through Monday nights and next Friday.

LAist Featured Photos contributor Marshall Astor titled this photo "Holy Fuck Part Deux! Thrifty Gas in San Pedro Goes for Broke."

Around 100 people's car tires were slashed over the night, leaving San Pedro residents with an unhappy morning surprise. It wasn't until people gathered at a local tire store that they all began to figure out what happened. Police are not sure exactly how many people were victimized, but one person is quoted in a Daily Breeze report saying they were "inundated" with calls.

Living in an RV in San Pedro just got a little harder, at least for the next 30 days. Councilwoman Janice Hahn announced a new pilot program making it harder for RVs to park in the "designated RV restriction district in South San Pedro." New street signs installed state that no parking will be allowed for oversized vehicles between the hours of 2:00 and 6:00 a.m.

San Pedro (or as he would say, "Pedro") local Mike Watt kayaks just about every morning and always takes beautiful beautiful beautiful sunrise photos. Here's one recent morning over at the Harbor.

           

Yesterday at four different locations around the Los Angeles area, teams built ice structures, a re-creation of performance and installation artist Allan Kaprow's "Fluids." Yesterday, Kaprow's son helped build one of the structures in Pasadena's Memorial Park. LAist Featured Photos contributor Tom Andrews was there to catch it.

This last Tuesday at the crack of dawn, famous San Pedro local Mike Watt snapped this shot. "I'm paddling my kayak down in the harbor here in Pedro and I saw the Angels Gate Lighthouse being reflected down onto the water and took a shot of it as I was about to pass her and head out into the open sea. I flipped the picture 180 degrees to give it a trippy perspective. It is NOT photoshopped!"