A small two acre brush fire behind the homes on the 3700 block of Benedict Canyon Lane in Sherman Oaks ignited for unknown reasons at 5:36 a.m. this morning. 50 firefighters and one helicopter fought it for forty minutes before knocking down the fire around 6:15 a.m. The area had a lot of thick brush d'Lisa Davies, Spokesperson for the LA Fire Department, said over the phone. Firefighters were easily able to fight the fire......

David Markland of LA Metblogs posted this above video from a surveillance camera at the his apartment building in Hollywood. A man dressed up as a construction worker walks up to a bike, cuts the bolt of the lock and steals it shortly after 8:00 a.m. last week Tuesday. As Markland notes in his post, his local neighborhood council representative said this is occurring around town with DWP workers. In Sherman Oaks last week,......

Vitello's in Studio City has been a Valley classic for years, serving up simple but extremely tasty Italian food. Despite some of its popular culture references (notably the Robert Blake murder case and when the image of Jesus was found in some Manicotti), the restaurant is a neighborhood icon and consistently a community partner. Today, they opened their second space at the corner Woodman and Ventura. Vitello's Express has some of the Studio City menu......

Photos by Snack Behrens/LAist In Los Feliz, you've got the trendy Fred 62 with their talked about Mac Daddy & Cheese Balls ($6.62) coated in "spicy breadcrumbs" (that we did not find too spicy). Over in Sherman Oaks, there is the eclectic Boneyard Bistro who serves up Fried Mac n’ Cheese ($4/$6), which are more accurately, shells. Put them face to face and who wins the battle? Play by Play: Fred 62 vs. Boneyard......

The streets of Sherman Oaks recently got plastered with signs announcing a new Thursday night Farmers Market coming to the Sherman Oaks Fashion Square property starting on August 7. It's been years since the weekly market in another part of the neighborhood closed down, so this could be a fresh awakening and good complement to the already popular Studio City Farmers Market on Sunday mornings. They expect over 4,000 people to attend and it suspiciously......

A sign near the intersection of Riverside Dr. and Fulton Ave. in Sherman Oaks. | Photo by Zach Behrens/LAist Further investigation into reasons why a few spots around the city have signs prohibiting bicycle sidewalk riding shows that both Sherman Oaks locations were due to troubles caused by skateboarders. After pedestrians getting hit by boards, cars nearly hitting skaters falling into the street and customers being intimidated, Van Nuys Division LAPD officers requested a......

A sign at Hollywood & Vine | Photo by discarted 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." Reading that, you would think that you can ride your bike on all the other sidewalks......

Total cost: 5 bucks and some change | Photo by Zach Behrens/LAist In the earlier days of the frozen yogurt craze, Yogurtland sprung up in Fullerton in February 2006. It was a success and so more stores opened in Hollywood, Long Beach, Little Tokyo, Sherman Oaks and many other Southern California locations and one in Cupertino up north. They even opened a location in Greenwich Village in New York City with plans for Vegas,......

An early Sunday evening walk exploring your own neighborhood can be quite fulfilling. Here's what caught our eye while taking a walk up Alomar Drive in the hills of Sherman Oaks towards a little known piece of public open space that overlooks the San Fernando Valley (nearby, you can hike a small trail in Dixie Canyon Park). Looking for a walk that is a little more than casual? Try the Hollywoodland Staircases Walk in Beachwood......

Map of New Pizza & Italian Places in Sherman Oaks | View Larger Map More and more, Sherman Oaks' eastside along Ventura Blvd. is being referred as one of Los Angeles' premiere restaurant rows. News came out Monday on Eater LA that two Italian restaurants will be opening. In the old Orange Delight space (they moved a couple storefronts down to expand), Vitello's (of Tujunga and, well, yes, that Robert Blake thing too) is......

Despite the general consensus of constituents in their respective districts, three Democratic congressmen representing Los Angeles areas have voted to pass a controversial bill " that would offer retroactive immunity to telephone companies that cooperated with the federal government’s post-Sept. 11, 2001, domestic spying program and did so despite widespread opposition in their districts," reports the Glendale News Press. Adam Schiff (D-Pasadena), Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks) and Howard Berman (D-Van Nuys) all supported the bill......

There's no better time to open the city's first New Orleans snow-ball shop than during a heatwave. Tucked between two of the many small restaurants in Sherman Oaks' restaurant row is Nola Ice, a product of two entertainment publicists with Southern origins and aspirations to bring the Big Easy treat to the West Coast. A New Orleans sno-ball is the refined and more delectable version of a streetfair sno-cone. The ice is finely shaved (it......

Russian Hot Chocolate | Photo by Snack Behrens/LAist Since January, Sherman Oaks' restaurant row has been home to the first Jazzve Coffee in the country. The slick and classy coffeeshop, which is an Armenian chain (one website says it's the Starbucks of the country), specializes, not in jazz music, but a very strong coffee ($3.99) that's cooked in a Jazzve pot on sand (photo of the Jazzve below). But what caught this late-night snacker's......

Los Angeles is a place where, to put it mildly, it's a little hard to tell the truth from the lie. Are you really standing inside a giant ice cave? Or are you down on Stage 6 again? People come here to reinvent themselves. And sometimes they begin to believe that story they've told everyone. Then they write about it. In February of this year, Margaret B. Jones, foster child, incest victim, gang member......

After a rash of shootings in the San Fernando Valley that left eight injured and two dead within four hours on Tuesday night, the Daily News mentions that Councilman Richard Alarcon and Councilwoman Wendy Greuel, who represent parts of the East Valley, "are doubling efforts to build Neighborhood Watch programs." In Greuel's district, many watch programs have been forming over the last year. Last Friday night, a group of residents in East Sherman Oaks gathered......

Oh, you've got to love rumors, especially those that both anger and please people, depending on who you're speaking with. This rumor comes via a report during the Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council* meeting last Monday night. During a Land Use Committee report, someone asked what the status was on the old Ventura Club building at Colbath and Ventura (just East of Hazeltine). Originally it was slated as a Walgreens, but after that got scrapped, the......

The Mexican/Spanish restaurant-lounge Senor Fred has cemented its reputation as a Ventura Blvd. hot spot for drinks, but it's also a nice lunch destination for those of you trawling the Sherman Oaks area. The place fulfills at least two requirements of a good Mexican restaurant: spicy salsa that tastes homemade (their version has a nice smoky flavor to it), and strong, simple margaritas. The food is far superior to Mexicali's questionable menu, but about......

Photo submitted by LAist reader Tom Godfrey Here's an interesting tidbit from Sherman Oaks. At the Valley's busiest intersection, Sepulveda and Ventura, you need to cross 17 lanes of traffic to get from one corner to its catty corner. Oy vey! Would this be one of those intersections slated for a diagonal crosswalk the Mayor spoke about last week? And for those who use public transportation and end up walking many of these large......

Photo by kpeII via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr The elderly women known as the 'Black Widows' have been found guilty of murder conspiracy. Partial verdicts were read today against 77-year-old Helen Golay and 75-year-old Olga Rutterschmidt for their roles in two murders. A 27-year-old man from Sherman Oaks jumped to his death this morning from an overpass on the 210 Freeway at Sierra Avenue in Fontana. He had left his car......

Watch those mailboxes, people are stealing. Reported by a representative of City Councilman Jack Weiss last night at a Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council meeting, homes in the hills of Sherman Oaks (you know, "south of the boulevard," as they say) are falling victim to mail theft. And while the immediate concern is ID theft, what is happening is that checks are being whited in the name field out and cashed by the thieves. Come tax......

Photo by delara-photos via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr A 16-year-old boy who shot at a police car in Boyle Heights last night remains at large today. Details are clearing things up about what was first reported as a drive-by shooting that took place on Ventura Blvd. last night; turns out it was two employees of a smoke shop who were shot. The assailants entered the store through the back entrance. The body......

Looks like some folks in the San Fernando Valley didn't get the memo about the city's 40 hour moratorium on violence. According to the Daily News, "a man was shot outside of a pizza parlor in an apparent drive-by shooting late Friday." The incident took place after ten o'clock last night in Sherman Oaks near Ventura and Van Nuys Boulevards, an area particularly dense with foot traffic and restaurants. A motive for the shooting is......

Meet the future location of Studio Oaks Park where a grassroots effort is the only way this strip of unusable, rat-infested land will become a park. In Los Angeles, if you really want to get something done, you've got to take it upon yourself. In the southeast Valley, residents are doing just that.......

More details have come out today regarding the alleged Sunday morning Freeway shooting in Sherman Oaks near Van Nuys Blvd on the 101. A car with a young man, now identified as 20-year-old Marlon Gordillo-Sical, was found shot in his car after it crashed on the freeway. He was taken UCLA Medical where he was pronounced dead. Police were cautious in assuming details yesterday as KNBC reported (emphasis added): The Honda sedan could have been......

"little green leaf," by Melle Music via LAist Featured Photos Pool on Flickr For those who thought oil spills only happened when big tankers in Alaska collided with icebergs, may I point you to the South Bay? Crews were busy Saturday cleaning up about 5,500 gallons of oil that spilled into the wetlands area around Machado Lake. The oil apparently overflowed from an oil-and-water separator at the Cooper & Brain Oil Co. field near PCH......

Taken from the 8th Floor of the City National Bank Building | Photo by Mitch Oberstein with an iPhone *Update, 6:42 p.m.: A maintenance man familiar with the building has said they found an apparent suicide note.A witness is reporting to LAist that it appears a person has fallen from a building at 14724 Ventura Blvd. in The Village area of Sherman Oaks. "There's streaks of blood and just a sheet covering him," said......

"11.1.07," by edenjet via LAist Featured Photos Pool on Flickr There is more information about the Wilmington shooting Thursday night that left one suspect dead and another in critical condition. "He just came out and decided, 'This is what I'm going to do today,'" one of the officers said. I think someone needed a hobby. Are you tired of the current crop of movies at the Arclight in Sherman Oaks? Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel,......

Sherman Oaks and South LA made national news yesterday when a Los Angeles native, now based in Oregon, became the latest decried author who penned a fraudulent memoir. Yes, Margaret Seltzer grew up in the Valley, no Margaret B. Jones (her non de plume) did not gangbang in South Central as her book said. Today, the fallout came in the form of experts giving quotes to the media about this reoccurring theme. What first comes......

A 33-year-old white woman from Sherman Oaks, now living in Eugene, Oregon, has made national headlines today as news comes that her memoir was largely fabricated. Last week, Margaret Seltzer who goes by the pen name Margaret B. Jones was featured in the New York Times' Home & Garden section in a fascinating story about her book, "Love and Consequences." One LAist reader explains her fascination about it in an e-mail: I read the home......

Lots of old school films happening around town tonight. / Photo by get directly down via flickr. THEATRE You have a hand at commenting on the Theatre of NOTE’s play selection this week and next. NOTEwood is their comprehensive series of public readings featuring new, original works. The 2009 season will be chosen from the 30 scripts selected to be read aloud at the year’s NOTEwood reading – but there’s a talk back session......