'Fortress Venice' — Officials Seek to Restrict Street Access to Venice Beach Tourist Attraction

It's been not quite a year ago since I was up there, "Chillin' in Santa Monica and Venice Beach."

I've had a hankering to return, actually. But I better hurry up about it, if this front-page report at the Los Angeles Times is any indication, "Officials seek to tame Venice boardwalk":

Spencer Davis was chatting up tourists on the Venice boardwalk when police officers pulled up in front of his display of plastic alien heads.

Had Davis seen a man threatening people with a chain saw, they asked?

"Not today," he quipped with a smile, assuming that the officers were joking.

Then he turned around and saw police officers, their guns drawn, with a man holding a chain saw.

"Just when you think you've seen it all…" Davis said.

For all the gentrification, designer homes and tourist attractions, Venice is still that kind of place — where artists, the homeless, Silicon Beach hipsters, surfers, inline skaters and tourists come together along a circus-like boardwalk.

Over the last few decades, the city has tried to tame the scene on Ocean Front Walk, but with limited success. Now, City Hall is making what some locals consider the most concerted effort yet to bring control to the area.

The city is considering a series of safety measures, including security cameras, more lights and a public address system, as well as closing off about 20 of the 32 streets that dead-end onto Ocean Front Walk. To accomplish that, the plan also calls for the installation of automated retractable posts, as well as gates, planters or other measures at the locations to prevent cars from getting onto the boardwalk....

Critics say that the city is trying to turn the beloved boardwalk — one of California's top tourist draws — into "Fortress Venice."

"If you can't even go to the beach without being watched," said Venice Neighborhood Council President Linda Lucks, "where can you go?"

More.

#Angels Owner Arte Moreno Threatens to Abandon Anaheim Stadium, Move Team

I missed these stories earlier this week, at LAT, "Anaheim OKs Angels lease talks amid mention of team's ability to move," and "Angels' owner has means to move team, Anaheim City Council told."

And then reading the sports page today I saw this, "Letters: Where will Arte Moreno go?":

After reading about Arte "I have the means to move the team elsewhere" Moreno and the lease negotiations with the city of Anaheim, it sure makes me glad I'm a Dodgers fan. It would seem the one angle Mr. Moreno has forgotten about is the fans. You know, the ones who give him 3-million-plus attendance every year, while all they've gotten from him is a lousy, overpriced team and lower beer prices 10 years ago.

There once was a time he was an owner to be admired, but now at least when it comes to Angel Red, maybe we are seeing his true colors.

David Parsons
Fontana

Pretty well said, especially the part about the 3 million fans. I've been an Angels fan since I was about 10 years old. Needless to say I'd be bummed if Moreno picked up stakes.

In any case, the City of Anaheim as made a generous offer on a lease agreement, covered in Bill Shaikin's commentary at LAT, "Angels' Arte Moreno could pay off in a big way for city of Anaheim."

Below is your humble blogger before the game earlier this summer, "#Angels Beat #Cardinals in Spectacular 6-5 Walk-Off Win on 4th of July." Here's hoping to many more like that right here in the O.C.

#Vegas Beggar Dude Needs a Beer

My kinda panhandler, on the bridge between the MGM Grand and New York New York hotels, Las Vegas, Nevada.



I'm in Vegas for the holiday weekend with my wife and youngest boy. I've been posting photos and commentary to Twitter.

22 Excellent Reasons to Drink More Whiskey

A quick diversion from immigration, at BuzzFeed "As If You Needed Any..." (Via Instapundit.)

That's Famous Grouse, seen at Hi-Time Wine Cellars in Costa Mesa.

'Iron Man 3' Review

From Kenneth Turan, at the Los Angeles Times, "Review: 'Iron Man 3' smartly reboots the suit midflight":

The most interesting thing about this new "Iron Man" is that, far from being slicker than the first two versions, it is unexpectedly — and successfully — darker and more serious than its predecessors, with a cast including top actors like Guy Pearce, Ben Kingsley and Rebecca Hall.

With former director Jon Favreau reduced to his acting role as Happy Hogan, now the obsessive head of security for Stark Industries, this latest "Iron Man" (co-written by Drew Pearce) has thankfully done away with most of the previous installments' tone-deaf repartee between Stark and Gwyneth Paltrow's indispensable (to him at least) Pepper Potts.

Pepper, now in charge of Stark Industries, is in residence at Stark's Malibu compound and sharing his life, though the man himself is far from his former carefree self. Skittish, uneasy, unable to sleep and given to compulsively building one high-maintenance Iron Man suit after another, Stark is still dealing with the anxiety attack aftereffects of fighting off all those aliens in last summer's "The Avengers," a movie which "Iron Man" blithely assumes everyone on the planet has seen (which may in fact be true).

Read it all at the link.

The most recent trailer is here: "Marvel's Iron Man 3 - TV Spot 11 - Now Playing."

I'm heading out right now with my boys to catch it at the Irvine Spectrum.

I'll be back!