Today around 5:30 p.m. a middle-aged Hispanic male, wearing dress pants, loafers and a button down shirt was severely beaten in the Ocean Front Walk bathrooms by the basketball courts. Apparently someone trying to use the restrooms opened the door and found the man covered in blood on the ground. His face was beaten so badly it was completely swollen. He did not appear to speak English, and was transported to the hospital by paramedics. Nobody in the very busy boardwalk area heard or saw anything, not that you can hear much at the volume that the local pipe shop ( which should not be operating within 500 ft of a City Park ) was blasting their music.

From KTLA:

LOS ANGELES, Calif. (KTLA) — A strong weather system moving down from Alaska is expected to hit the California coast this weekend.

The system is generating a large west swell that is predicted to bring monster waves and dangerous rip currents from the Bay Area to San Diego.

The surf will peak in Southern California on Sunday with waves reaching 7 to 12 feet along west-facing beaches like El Porto in Manhattan Beach.

The National Weather Service has issued a high surf advisory for Saturday for San Francisco, southern Monterey Bay, and Big Sur.

Winds up to 25 mph could whip up even stronger waves.

The system should lose most of its strength by Monday.

Note: Although we have been told it is a State Requirement that all dispensaries grow ALL of their weed on site… you can imagine for yourself if they are all following that requirement or not on your own. We have also been told by the City that they continue to work towards closing all medical marijuana dispensaries and associated operations.

From the Huffington Post:

Brennan Thicke has struggled for years to keep his Los Angeles business open. Several months ago, he called a staff meeting to discuss what he thinks might be his last, best hope: starting an employee union.

“I told them, ‘Here’s the deal: This is an opportunity for you to save your jobs,’” Thicke recalled.

Employers typically fight worker attempts to unionize. But Thicke’s business is not typical. Thicke sells marijuana.

For nearly six years, Thicke has owned and operated a nonprofit medical marijuana dispensary called the Venice Beach Care Center.

The federal government considers pot dispensaries illegal but California law has authorized such businesses in certain areas of the state. Initially, the Obama administration said the federal government would not interfere with medical marijuana users who followed state laws, but last year the federal government began to take a far more aggressive stance, threatening to shut down medical marijuana shops throughout California. The number of dispensaries in Los Angeles is now capped, and its City Council is now considering a full ban.

As owners like Thicke have grown increasingly anxious that their businesses may soon be shut down, they have turned to the United Food and Commercial Workers union as an ally in seeking to protect the jobs they offer and as an advocate at City Hall to fight the ban.

Last week, workers at 14 pot shops, including Thicke’s, formed the Medical Cannabis and Hemp Division of Local 770 of the UFCW, a union that also represents grocery clerks, pharmacists and health care workers. Workers at dozens of other pot shops are now in discussions with the union.

Pro-union owners say they hope the UFCW will protest the proposed ban and impose standards on an industry in which many owners still operate without licenses. They also hope it will make their businesses appear more legitimate.

“This is a union town, darling,” said marijuana shop owner Yami Bolanos, a two-time cancer survivor who said she had been “living a miserable life” before she started using marijuana. She is also the president of the Greater Los Angeles Collective Alliance, an industry trade group that is supporting the union effort. “We are good hard-working people, and these are good jobs. We needed some heavy hitters on our side to tell that story.”

Thicke employs 14 people, who earn from $10 to $25 an hour. When he first told his employees of the union drive, they were skeptical. “It’s money out of their pockets,” Thicke said, referring to the union dues that employees will pay. “But it became unanimous fairly quickly that this was the way to go for them,” he added.

Adam Daniels, an assistant manager at LA Wonderland who is believed to be the first pot worker in Los Angeles to sign a union contract, said he had a good gut feeling about the union from the start. He then pitched the idea to his coworkers, also known as “bud tenders” — associates who help clients find the right type of marijuana for their ailments.

“I wrangled everyone together and said, ‘This is really important — it’s basically an act of patriotism, coming together like this,’” Daniels recalled.

Daniels has been working in the industry for nearly six years, after his previous work in the motion picture industry dried up. “I was like, what’s making money? Marijuana and porn. And I wasn’t about to go into porn,” he said. Daniels earns from $40,000 and $50,000 a year. He says that he loves his new job and is scared about losing it. Mostly, Daniels hopes the union will protect his job and negotiate health insurance benefits. He, like some other pot shop workers, has no insurance.

“We’re working on that,” Daniels said. “But the main thing the union will do, I think, is eliminate the shady businesses that are out there. That’s the real problem in this industry.”

The owner of the last pot shop he worked for, Daniels said, was an “absolute nightmare,” who routinely violated labor laws, like not allowing his employees a full lunch break and refusing to pay taxes. He hopes that a growing union presence in the industry will force shops like that to shut down or change their ways.

Union representatives are focusing on organizing drives at dispensaries where the owners appear to be following legal requirements, such as registering their business with the city and paying taxes. “We want only the best employers because we don’t think that many will be left standing at the end of this fight,” said Rigoberto Valdez, organizing director of Local 770′s cannabis campaign.

The UFCW already has contracts with workers at a handful of other pot shops in Oakland, Calif., and in Colorado and other areas where medical marijuana dispensaries are legal. Valdez said that after the UFCW announced several agreements by workers to set up a union, he was flooded with calls from other employers, eager to introduce him to their workforce and explore the possibility of a union contract.

“We took the committee of the willing first, but now we’re bombarded with calls,” Valdez said. Although Valdez has been a union organizer for 17 years, he has never experienced an instance of employers initiating an organizing drive.

The union and employers are now involved in contract negotiations at the shops — often one of the most critical aspects of a union campaign. The the union sees positions at the marijuana dispensaries as similar to those of the pharmacists and other health care workers it represents.

“This is the next step in professionalizing and stabilizing this new sector of the health care industry,” Local 770 President Rick Icaza said at a news conference last week. “This is a positive step towards successfully integrating compassionate care into our system of health care.”

Councilman Bernard Parks, one of the first of four council members to propose a citywide ban on medical marijuana shops, could not be immediately reached for comment.

CLARIFICATION: This story has been updated to reflect that Rigoberto Valdez is organizing director of the cannabis campaign for Local 770 but not for the entire United Food and Commercial Workers union.

On the morning of December 9th, 2011, a gunman, distraught over the recent breakup with his girlfriend, entered the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Vine St. The gunman proceeded to fire round after round at helpless pedestrians and motorists who were passing by. The gunman’s bullets claimed the life of one motorist, and wounded two others.

As this was occurring, one of the witnesses ran to the nearby Archlight Theater seeking help. LAPD West Traffic Division motor Officer Kevin Cotter, who was working off-duty at a movie shoot, came to the aid of the witness. Officer Cotter ran into the intersection where he met up with Detective Craig Marquez, who had been on his way to the San Fernando Valley on another investigation, but responded to the “shooting in progress” radio call.

Marquez and Cotter approached the gunman and ordered him, several times, to submit to arrest. The gunman refused to comply, an instead pointed his handgun at Cotter and Marquez. In defense of their lives, Cotter and Marquez fired their service weapons at the gunman, fatally wounding him.

The officers were commended tonight for bravery and heroism. Their actions no doubt saved numerous lives that day and kept with the highest traditions of the Los Angeles Police Department.

Click the image below or this link! One “Like” = $1 and they are more than halfway there! Thanks NBCLA!

Read an entire article from the LA Times here.

In the 1960s, Larry Stevenson’s Makaha skateboards helped merge surfing and skateboard cultures. He also publicized the activity as publisher of Surf Guide magazine.

Excerpts from the Times article say:

“Larry Stevenson, a Venice Beach lifeguard who helped popularize skateboarding in the early 1960s by marketing his Makaha boards to riders eager to essentially surf on land, has died. He was 81.

Stevenson, who hadParkinson’s disease, died Sunday at Santa Monica UCLA Medical Center, said his son, Curt.

“He was the guy who said, ‘I can merge surfing with the skateboard culture,’” said Michael Brooke, author of the 1999 skateboarding history “The Concrete Wave.” “At one point in time, there was nobody bigger making skateboards.”

From his lifeguard tower, Stevenson noticed kids riding rickety, often homemade, skateboards, and he had an epiphany, he later recalled. He knew he could engineer a better skateboard and, as publisher of Surf Guide, used the magazine to link the wheeled pastime to the exploding surf scene.”

In 1965, theAmerican Medical Assn.labeled skateboards “a new medical menace.” A variety of skateboards had flooded the market and riders were increasingly injured. Safety experts urged stores not to sell skateboards and advised parents not to buy them.

The fad died as quickly as it began, as did sales for Makaha.

“One week I was getting so many orders, people were leaving them on my doorstep. … The next, I was getting 75,000 cancellations in a single day!” Stevenson recalled in “The Skateboarder’s Bible” (1976).

He shut down the factory in 1966 and returned to his lifeguard chair, but he continued to ponder building a better skateboard.”

A service is planned at Venice Beach. Details will be posted at Stevenson’s Facebook page,http://www.facebook.com/RichardLStevenson.

The facebook page also has many amazing photographs!

Local Tattoo Shop “House Of Ink” has two locations in Venice, and they have always been great neighbors in going the extra mile in keeping their local block clean and watching out for their neighborhood. Now they are extending some local gratitude, offering a $50 discount for the next 100 people who “like” their facebook page. So if you have been contemplating some ink, now is the time!

From House of Ink: The next 100 people who “like” the House of Ink facebook page get $50 off their next tattoo at House of Ink. Once you “like” the page, please send us a message through our page so that we can send you the info.

Their facebook page is http://www.facebook.com/HouseOfInk

Their Venice locations are:

8 Brooks Ave., Venice Beach (On the Boardwalk)

1313 Ocean Front Walk, Venice Beach (Next to Sidewalk Cafe)

Local LOVE!

Today a female DUI driver was taken into custody after hitting a Metro bus at the intersection of Main & Market. After she T-boned the bus right in the middle of the bus, a male tried to help her. He was looking in her purse when officers arrived and he was taken into custody because she claimed she didn’t know him and he didn’t have permission to be in her purse. He repeatedly claimed he was trying to help her, but he was in her purse and not dealing with her. She was detained on the sidewalk while other units arrived. She repeatedly said she never drank, has never drank and would never drink. Then, the male in custody disclosed that when he was in her purse, there was an almost empty big bottle of Vodka inside…which there was. She kind of changed her tune when asked a second time. When a female officer arrived she requested to do her field sobriety test around a corner where people couldn’t see her because she was so prominent of a person in Venice. She failed the test miserably, was loud and combative - and was finally taken into custody and taken to jail.

There was a child seat in the car. She was asked where her child was, and all she kept saying was that she knew where her child was… and then finally let officers know the child wasn’t with her, luckily. The Metro Bus was filled with passengers that were transferred to another bus while the investigation continued. The car was towed and she was booked for DUI.