{"article":{"id":247430,"heading":"Venice Boardwalk ordinance draft looks like it's going to fail it's duties","author":"Venice Artist","created":"2011-08-18 18:58:32","modified":"2013-11-11 01:06:36","last_modified":"Mon, 11 Nov 2013 08:06:36","article":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><body><br>  <br> The comments here are in reference  to article below on Patch website... <br><br> More articles are also available in  the Free Venice Beachhead and The Argonaut newspapers of last week.  <br><br>  <br>  <br> \" The article [below] was pointed out verbally to a big Venice residential group  who met at the Venice Neighborhood Council on 8\/16\/2011. Comment about the Boardwalk was made to elicit more interested  responses, questions and discussion.    <br><br> Activism is urgently needed, especially before more \"catastrophes' occur &ndash; while it&rsquo;s coming with the lack of accountability, transparency, or enforcement of a LA City ordinance &ndash;meant  to regulate or eliminate the  obviously-commercial-vendors with the &lsquo;flea&rsquo; effect.    <br><br> And enforcement is also needed to control the threatening bullies who daily pretend to 'save spaces' on Venice Boardwalk sidewalk and who act like extortion racquets who  reign and misuse City Property on the Boardwalk. &ndash; which could still now a free-from-rent set-up for actual ARTISTS- to display their art publicly and  to access some walking-by customers&hellip;instead  the area being  just an easy cheap access to sell cheap  purchased-resold [mostly &lsquo;made in China&rsquo;] mdse.   <br><br> Please come to the next month's VNC meeting to voice your views there,. Or go elsewhere, to include your part in any PUBLIC DISCUSSION in any decision-making  that will be done by LA City Council or their affiliated lobbying groups.  <br><br> Neglect will insure that Venice - as an image of what was in past days a decent paradise or was a tourist  'attraction'  that will continue to fall away, or to deteriorate more , or be quickly &amp; totally destroyed.  That will open the way for some un-transparent elite gentrification that may be already planned.   <br><br> And guess what ?  Venice will be just  another repeat of for rich only folks - taking of what was PUBLIC spaces for their own &ldquo;ONLY&rdquo; exclusive use.   <br><br> Why ?  Because deterioration &amp; neglect allow for usurpation and privatization. And  that comes with loss of public access to what was once \" beautiful Venice Beach.....\" or however it was remembered before &hellip;. but now only in past memories. <br><br> (C) wowveniceisactive 2011  <br><br> article here :  <br>  <br> <a href=\"http:\/\/venice.patch.com\/articles\/draft-ordinance-for-boardwalk-vending-would-prohibit-sale-of-jewelry-other-handmade-crafts#comments\">http:\/\/venice.patch.com\/articles\/draft-ordinance-for-boardwalk-vending-would-prohibit-sale-of-jewelry-other-handmade-crafts#comments<\/a>  \n<\/body><\/html>\n","contact":"","link":"http:\/\/wowveniceisactive.wordpress.com","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/plain","summary":"Venice Boardwalk has been a big loss to the City- how it is seen by Los Angeles' tourist crowds, and to LA's own image as an artistic or art-supportive environment. Commercial vending of cheap re-sale-mdse. bought at any local wholesaler while using City sidewalk free spaces ruins any art scene. City Council doing a draft that looks bad so far. ","numcomment":5,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2011\/08\/247430.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[{"id":247452,"heading":"Who organizes the booths?","article":"They need to set up some kind of limit on non-artist booths.  Like, maybe let the current hawkers sell there for anther 5 years, but all new tenants need to be legit local handcrafters or something.\r\n","author":"mous","parent_id":247430,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2011-08-19 19:47:42","modified":"2011-08-19 19:47:42","fileurl":""},{"id":247462,"heading":"Let all the commercial Hawkers be gone ! finally and forever, please !","article":"sorry but this suggestion in comment above &quot;let the current hawkers sell there for anther 5 years&quot; is letting the thieves, thugs,  bullies and riff-raff  to illegally remain- which the will also insure that Venice Beach becomes so ugly and decrepit  that there are solid excuses to demolish and gentrify the entire beach area.\r\n\r\nWhy let anyone continue to do what dis-benefits the  whole Venice community? Why help what spoils the image & intention- idea of what \u201cVenice the Tourist Attraction\u201d is claimed to be ?\r\n\r\nWhy let the hustlers take over and ruin what can be  public value of public spaces ? \r\n\r\nWhy let hawkers and aggressive usurpers take over what was not intended for them to door have ? Since these greedy mean grabbers do nothing more than to diminish, destroy and disrespect the prior image of the Venice  Art Community\u2026 that has been tarnished and can hardly be found in Venice any more ?    \r\nLet us all, as Venice is part of the City of LA still,  let\u2019s not just let the place go into the trash heap it that has become over the last 6+ yrs. Ever since the city ordinance was looped and holed and the Lottery system inadvertently allowed this excess  re-vending of cheap flea market junk that is being sold where there is No Rent, No Regulations, No taxes paid, No honest dealings, No ART allowed because Art has been squeezed Out !\r\n\r\nPlease be more constructively helpful with your clever comments and suggestions....\r\n\r\nHas anyone gone to actually feel, see the and experience the place, not just a 20 min walk thru and drive away but actually inspect, inquire and then report back what this is or is not ???\r\n\r\nThen comment and tell us your honest perceptions...\r\n","author":"venice artist","parent_id":247430,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2011-08-20 15:49:07","modified":"2013-11-11 01:06:36","fileurl":""},{"id":247661,"heading":"Come to Meeting 9\/21 re draft for new Ordinance","article":"See  www.LACity.org     for upcoming meeting by Parks and Rec regarding a NEW DRAFT OF THE ORDINANCE that will regulate hopefully the vending on west side of Venice Boardwalk.\r\n\r\nMeeting is scheduled for Sept 21 but has not been set up yet.But soon.. so check website again or call your  local LA city council-person to ask them directly. \r\n\r\nsometimes it seems they DONT WANT PUBLIC COMMENT NOR INPUT so red tape  makes it difficult to find out when and where one can come, listen, speak, and ask questions or at least Observe the process - that then ends up regulating everyone involved or even those passing thru the area. \r\n\r\nVenice is a popular walk-thru on beach-front for angelinos from all over, including tourists from afar. The vending of junk and commercial  'made in china&quot; or &quot;thailand&quot; etc JUNK has been the predominant ruination of what was before an ARTIST'S DISPLAY and sometimes an occasional sale.\r\nIt has turned into a thuggish and ugly place, sometimes even dangerous and mean.\r\n\r\nThe ordinance will set up rules for how the beach-front walk  will allow or disallow sales of flea market resale cheap stuff.\r\n\r\nCome to have your say. Let the City Council know you too want a beautiful place to take family & children, not a flea market with fleas and greedy vendors. Help make Venice\r\na place where you too are proud to visit and learn, about ART, not about hawkers, hustlers, conniving sellers or \r\nintoxicated beggars. \r\n\r\nReturn Venice to the place similar to what it once was - \r\na plain community oriented beach front walk area for the whole city and all dwellers to enjoy. Not a sight to avoid. \r\n\r\nHelp Venice become beautiful once again.","author":"Venice Artist","parent_id":247430,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2011-09-08 21:42:33","modified":"2011-09-08 21:42:33","fileurl":""},{"id":247980,"heading":"Venice Boardwalk new ordinances NEED your feedback too !","article":"The way the LA City Parks Dept hides and denies access  to public citizen to come to their meetings - by NOT providing timely information nor easily accessible locations for meetings has  made them accomplish having it only THEIR WAY only  yet again.\r\n\r\nA meeting that was set to discuss the Venice Boardwalk commercial sales of junk ordinance was scheduled for 9\/21  - but it was not to be found on the front page of &quot;meetings&quot; at LA City oficial webpage.\r\nWhy ? \r\n\r\nBecause unless you are an invested businessperson with a profit motive to motivate hours of time and effort , it takes time and work and frustration to just FIND OUT where a meeting may or not be held...\r\n\r\nand the information of the important meeting was only presented to the Venice Neighborhood Council - a board most interested in it's area's regulations -  at 7:15pm of 9\/20 = the night before =  a 9:30 meeting in Harbor City [near San Pedro] on 9\/21 the next morning.\r\n\r\nWhy this delay in relaying information relevant and needed to the VNC members and all the venice citizens that attend those meetings ?   Only 1 day's notice was even given out as a flyer  given only at certain other official city meetings, not to 'the rest of the public'. .\r\n\r\nIntentionally AVOIDNG any PUBLIC PARTICIPATION in what are to be open and comment-able meetings ?\r\n\r\nHow could it be ?  that the Dist 5 of LA City Council did not know or not bother to send out information... so people could at least car pool or find a ride ...or get public transport information... or whatever is needed to take a long distance trip ...for the possibility maybe of making a public comment  = that SHOULD BE HEARD by those making laws, rules and ordinances that then affect the everyone  for years to come? \r\n\r\nMaybe We The American Public should not be heard nor comment on issues that affect us, nor question our 'elected' representatives at all ?\r\n\r\nOr maybe the meetings are secretly set up with only a few who will agree and conform and not ask embarrassing questions or confront any decisions by officials  - so only those can thus attend these hidden meetings that  yet do affect US all ? \r\n\r\nAnd the results ? Where will they be made public? Or be posted, revealed, reported ? Or will only a cleansed version be given out to those affected by those very same decision-makers ? So  that the taxpaying public who wants  NO MORE COMMERCIAL JUNK VENDING ON VENICE BEACH  have no say in what is said or decided about the upcoming ordinance changes ?\r\n\r\nwho knows?\r\n\r\nit is so hard to dis-cover the ways our officials set up these routine meetings =  that makes it actually an  un-democratic  process under the fake guise of being a participatory democracy we live under.\r\n\r\nUnder, as &quot;under&quot; - not inside of, a democracy  but beneath.","author":"Venice artists","parent_id":247430,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2011-09-24 20:07:29","modified":"2011-09-24 20:07:29","fileurl":""}]}