Results tagged “venice”

After firefighters doused a boat burning two miles off the coast of Venice Beach, officials are scratching their heads, trying to figure out where the people aboard are. First reported around 4:45 p.m. yesterday, the 20-foot powerboat was seen aflame, sending a column of smoke into the air. A witness report suggests that two people were on the boat and a search is in progress for them. The boat, named "The Casey Lynn," is registered to a 30-year-old Woodland Hills man out of Channel Islands Harbor in Oxnard. According to KTLA, he was going through marital problems.

In a follow-up to yesterday's post about the arrest of four suspects in Tuesday night's Santa Monica slaying, there is some speculation that it might be connected to a murder in Venice during the afternoon hours the same day. The LA Times reports that "William Charles McKillian Jr., 19, was in the 600 block of Westminster Avenue in Venice when he was confronted by at least one attacker who opened fire about 3:30 p.m." Police are unsure if they are connected at this point, but are "aggressively pursuing the cases in an effort to make sure there was no chance of the violence escalating."

For the past couple of months, two trucks have teased us as they prepped for their debut. The Grilled Cheese Truck tempted us with delicious photos before launching with great success last week. Up next is the Buttermilk Truck, which launches next week Wednesday at The Brig in Venice. With a breakfast and a late-night menu, there's a handful of items that sound savory. For example: the Hawaiian Bread Breakfast Sliders have Portuguese sausage, sauteed onions and shoyu scrambled eggs on Hawaiian bread.

          

It's no surprise that the Grilled Cheese Truck's debut last night drew hundreds of people who braved the windy weather and long wait. After all, it's grilled cheese, America's ooey gooey classic comfort food. Add to that Los Angeles' recent and growing obsession with gourmet food trucks hitting the streets and you've got the perfect recipe.

Last week Thursday, Devin Petelski was driving in Venice when her car and an LAPD vehicle collided. She and the two officers were sent to the hospital where she died two days later. The officer driving the car suffered a fractured hand and lacerations to his elbow while the other officer was treated for abrasions and general pain.

       

On Saturday, Dogtown finally got its skatepark. The 16,000-square-foot skate plaza on Venice Beach opened with politicians in force and skaters in motion on the park's bowls, ramps, rails, platforms, and steps.

It was only last February when construction began on the 16,000-square-foot Venice Beach Skate Plaza. Today, eight months later, the $3.5 million in-ground concrete park full of bowls, ramps, rails, platforms, and steps opens.

Lincoln Boulevard near Palms Boulevard in Venice is the latest pin on the increasingly-crowded map of locations where a water main break has caused damage and service interruption. This morning a rupture occurred in the area, causing the pavement to buckle and forcing the closure of lanes of traffic, according to LA Now. There have now been 35 of these "major blowouts" in the LA water system since the first of this month--far more than in September 2008 (21), 2007 (17), and 2006 (13). While "City engineers trying to determine what's causing the water main bursts have been taking soil samples, sending pipe pieces to labs and performing a statistical analysis on each break," many believe the infrastructure is experiencing the strain of surges because L.A. only allows large-scale watering two days a week, which is taxing on the aging pipes.

Today’s Recession Obsession is a gluttonous walk down memory lane, a walk to Campos Tacos in Venice, where a plate of hard-shelled chicken tacos, chips, and a drink is $7 after tax. While this Campos location might look like a dime-a-dozen Mexican hole-in-the-wall with a scary bathroom, to this author, it represents the birth of a love affair, and LAist’s latest Recession Obsession.

Lemonade will open its storefront on Abbot Kinney in Venice today, according to YoVenice. The self-described "part lemonade stand, part grade-school cafeteria" eatery already has locations set up in downtown and West Hollywood. YoVenice says "the menu will change constantly, often a few times a week, based on seasonal ingredients." They will also offer to-go options with picnic boxes.

Earlier this year when Venice residents were fed up with the vehicular homeless taking up the streets with RVs and allegedly dumping water illegally onto lawns and into the streets, the local neighborhood council held an election, ultimately approving overnight parking districts that would limit such activity. But the true legal authority in the manner was the California Coastal Commission who balked, voting against the proposal saying it was not there place to decide on social issues.

Tonight and tomorrow night, the LAPD will be conducting a couple DUI checkpoints around the city. "Our Message is simple: If we catch you drunk, you will be arrested," they say.

Now that the Los Angeles Marathon is back on a Sunday in March--the 21st to be exact--the new "Stadium to Sea" route is being hashed out. Under current Santa Monica law, only 5K and 10Ks are permitted, but on Tuesday the City Council instructed staff "to return with an ordinance or policy change that would allow marathons to be held in the city," according to the Santa Monica Daily Press.

Tasty web show VendrTV recently chewed their way through Los Angeles. The first of these SoCal episodes stops in Venice so that host Daniel Delaney can get the skinny on Marked5 (they're on Twitter, of course) and their delicious-looking Japanese burgers.

The city is looking into installing new parking meters that could potentially bring in $1 million in additional revenue to help fill the budget gap, but officials say they don’t have enough resources to do so. LADOT told councilmembers at last week’s Transit meeting the plan would not make any money in its first year because the meters would cost $1 million to install. Additionally, officials said the department is already 18 percent understaffed in maintenance technicians, making it harder to collect money and fix existing meters.

There's plenty to do this weekend, like keeping cool inside the movie theatre or getting out and about around town. But with summer comes warm temps, long days, and festivals galore. There are a couple of such goings-on happening this weekend that you might want to check out.

When the new Whole Foods that opened in Venice, I figured it would be like the other Whole Foods. Cramped. Packed. Expensive. Sometimes worth going to but an endurance. This Whole Foods is different in that it is gigantic (see the photo below) and even has clothing. That is all fine and good, but you can buy food and clothes many places.

it's been a long battle between permanent residents and the new mobile permanent residents of Venice. With the streets filling up with RVs and some allegedly dumping water waste (in the literal sense, too), on lawns and into the streets, residents wanted to limit the amount of overnight and RV parking in the neighborhood. It's what the residents ultimately voted for and what California Coastal Commission staffed urged. Nonetheless, Commission members voted against restrictions, saying it was not their "job to be the balance between homeless and residents.” Therefore, RVs stay put for now. We posted a good "catching up" video on this subject a couple weeks ago.

       

After throwing a well-attended and swingin' party a couple of weeks ago, Intelligentsia's second Los Angeles location is opening their doors to the public today. Intelligentsia--smart enough to be on Twitter--will debut their Venice Coffeebar at Noon.

40-year-old Donald Barrett was walking across the street when he was fatally struck and dragged by a Metro bus around 850 feet down two streets in Venice yesterday afternoon. "There does not appear to be any evidence of a crime and there are no charges pending at this time," explained the LAPD in a news release today. "The driver of the bus was transported to a local hospital for treatment of an undisclosed medical condition."

A bus making a right turn fatally struck, ran over and dragged man some 700 feet down a Venice street yesterday afternoon, according to KTLA. At about 4:32 p.m., the Metro bus was making a turn onto northbound Pacific Avenue from westbound Rose when a 30-year-old man was crossing Pacific and happened to be in the blind spot as the vehicle made the turn, police believe. The 51-year-old driver was not aware until other pedestrians flagged him down. The Los Angeles Fire Department responded to an address on Pacific near Navy Street. A map linked here shows the possible dragging distance.

Venice attracts a lot of people and has always had a number of vehicular homeless along its streets. More recently, thanks to the economy, the number of RVs, minivans and other vehicles housing people without a traditional home, have increased so much, that residents want to create overnight parking districts, effectively eliminating the problem... well, from their neighborhood, at least. KCET's SoCal Connected explored the issue last week in this above segment.

We were excited when Chicago-based Intelligentsia invaded the Eastside, now Westsiders can grab one hell of a fine cuppa closer to home thanks to their brand new and eagerly anticipated Venice digs. Last night they got things started with a heavily-attended opening fete, where the crowd ate, drank, and were very, very merry in honor of the new coffee mecca. We found this video online from the festivities so you can see what you missed last night. Just don't miss out on their killer espresso and brewed coffee drinks and beans. Be smart: Get thee to Intelligentsia!

       

We were offered a hosted lunch at Venice's Seed Kitchen, the newish Japanese-American fusion vegan macrobiotic restaurant brought to you by Sanae Suzuki and her husband Eric Lechasseur (formerly of M Cafe de Chaya). So we thought, why the heck not? By the way, this review is completely from the standpoint of a non-veggie. But here's a review of Seed by an actual vegan from Quarrygirl.com to give you that perspective, too.

"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.

Venice custom bike shop LA Brakeless (12220 Venice Blvd.) has won over a following of bike enthusiasts and celebrities like Moby, Jason Lee, Milo Ventimiglia and Hayden Panettiere with their wide selection of high quality parts and reasonable prices. The shop is now ready to drop a line of t-shirts and they're celebrating today at 7p.m. with a launch party featuring music from a lineup of LA lyricists like Low End Theory resident emcee NoCanDo, along with Intuition, Dumbfoundead and VerBS. Send an email to RSVP.

                  

Tortoise General Store on Abbot Kinney in Venice was opened by husband and wife Keiko and Taku Shinomoto at the end of October 2003, after they moved to Los Angeles from Tokyo. The Shinomoto's envisioned a general store full of beautiful and practical items. Recently they expanded their company to include a gallery space, also on Abbot Kinney.

The Venice Neighborhood Council, a group of elected volunteers under the auspices of the city, is becoming one of the more well known groups within the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment. Recently, they've taken on overnight parking drawing the attention of mainstream media and blogs. Via their e-mail newsletter, here's what the progressive group is doing next week:

The 2009 Los Angeles Homeless Count began last night, primarily covering the Westside including Venice, Santa Monica and West LA. One-hundred or so volunteers of all ages met in Culver City to split into teams and receive instructions on how to properly count.