Free Republic

A hotel near Venice Beach that the city bought to transform into homeless housing remains empty after years of drawn-out delays and a ballooning budget. The former Ramada Inn on Washington Avenue has sat mostly vacant since 2020 as officials have scrambled to secure permits, subsidies and construction financing. Now the price tag for the stalled project is approaching $20 million, after the city plunked down a relatively paltry $8 million for the property in 2020.

BRENTWOOD, Calif. (KABC) -- The driver accused of leading police on a wild chase that ended in a wrong-way crash on the 405 Freeway in the Brentwood area last week is facing 16 charges, prosecutors announced. Lisa Ann Heflin, 41, was charged Wednesday with 10 counts of assault upon a police officer, four counts of assault with a deadly weapon and one count each of fleeing a pursuing officer while driving recklessly and hit-and-run resulting in property damage, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office. Heflin pleaded not guilty to all charges on Wednesday.

Homeless and people with low incomes will soon be housed next to the iconic and expensive Venice Beach neighborhood after the Los Angeles City Council approved last week a 136-unit apartment building. The project, which will be built on city property that is now a parking lot, will cover 2.7 acres and the Venice Dell Community project will cost $75 million.

Doesn’t even take the backpack off.

little Huntington Beach political attitude has been transplanted north to Venice Beach in recent weeks, and the reviews from locals and tourists have not been winning.

Less than a week after a massive clean-up of homeless encampments on the Venice Beach Boardwalk, new arrivals continue to swarm the area, DailyMail.com can reveal. City officials promised they would return at the end of July to finish the job, but residents and shop owners say enough is enough, and tell DailyMail.com that last week's sweep was 'all for show'. Last week, a concerned resident who asked not to be identified captured a couple on video taking up camp near the popular boardwalk.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva wrote to the L.A. Board of Supervisors on Wednesday to ask them to declare a “state of emergency” on the local homeless crisis, saying that “failed policies” were causing death on the streets. Villanueva has recently adopted a more assertive approach, vowing to clear homeless encampments from the Venice Beach area and standing up to the L.A. City Council on its failure to contain the spread of tent cities throughout the city. This week, he stepped up his efforts by calling on the L.A. County Board of Supervisors to act, in a press conference....

Wearing a blue hoodie emblazoned with a picture of Marilyn Monroe, scowling, middle-aged Betty was deeply engrossed in a conversation with herself. Suddenly a mother and her teenage daughter rounded the bend on the beachfront bike path, and Betty, for no apparent reason, picked up an eight-inch square piece of plywood and hurled it, taking aim at the front wheel of the mom’s cycle, nearly causing her to come crashing down on to the pavement. Welcome to Venice Beach, California.

Residents of Venice Beach in Los Angeles say soaring crime rates and the exploding homeless population have made life in the elite beachside community unbearable. A 'catastrophic' increase in homelessness in Los Angeles has seen hundreds of tents line the beach's famous boardwalk. Business owners say they are being forced to close their doors and longterm residents are afraid to leave their homes after dark after being subjected to violent attacks and intimidation.

Although he has recently granted several softball interviews to friendly corporate media outlets as part of his tone-deaf rehabilitation book tour, Hunter Biden on Monday had no time for an independent journalist who had just a few simple questions to ask. Hunter initially came down to answer the door when journalist and filmmaker Phelim McAleer showed up outside of his home in Venice, California, but as soon as he realized that McAleer was not a state-approved journalist, “he ran back inside his home and slammed the door,” according to McAleer’s website Unreported Stories. To be fair, it’s possible that the...

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced new measures Sunday to help fight the spread of the coronavirus in L.A., as well as speed up testing for high-risk residents. While many Californians have been adhering to stay at home orders and social distancing guidelines, like keeping six feet distance from other people, far too many are not, the mayor said. "This weekend we saw too many images of too many people crowding beaches or canyons beyond their capacity. Too many people, too close together, too often," Garcetti said. "The longer we do that, the more people will get sick, and the...

With swelling transient encampments abutting seven-figure homes, the beachside enclave has emerged as a flashpoint for the inequality shaping Los Angeles — and a real-world test case for the liberal ideology of the area’s showbiz residents. After the first attack, Randy Osborn figured it was just his turn. Tire slashings in his east Venice Beach neighborhood had become commonplace. But when his vintage Land Rover was hit a sixth time in the course of a few months, Osborn, who runs a small virtual reality company and has lived in Venice for seven years, began to worry he was being singled...

In a nightmare scenario, a well-known physician was brutally attacked inside his BMW after leaving a seaside restaurant. Now, after surviving the bloody beating, he offers an exclusive account of the night he was nearly killed. Venice Beach was warm and festive when Dr. Bruce Lee left the Townhouse bar and restaurant and walked across Windward Avenue toward his car. It was around 10:30 p.m. on a weekday night, but crowds of people strolled along the broad avenue under bright lights. Lee, 61, absorbed the mood, relaxed and happy, as he slid behind the wheel of his green BMW 750....

The Los Angeles Fire Department was investigating reports that as many as seven people had been struck by lightning at Venice Beach and were injured when a rare series of thunderstorms hit the Southern California area on Sunday afternoon.

The new White House report that issued a dire warning about the nation’s changing climate comes on the heels of another study that illustrated how those changes could leave the world's largest coastal cities submerged in water. On Tuesday, President Obama stressed in an interview with TODAY’s Al Roker that climate change is already an issue costing the nation in numerous ways. "This is a problem that is affecting Americans right now," he said after the release of the new National Climate Assessment report, a comprehensive review of climate change and its impact on the country. "Whether it means increased...

A rare whale that has a dolphin-shaped head and saber-like teeth has been found dead on Los Angeles' Venice Beach, even though it prefers frigid subarctic waters. The roughly 15-foot-long female Stejneger's beaked whale washed ashore Tuesday night, the Los Angeles Times reported. A truck hauled away the mammal, which was being examined at the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum to determine how it died. The Stejneger's beaked whale is rarely seen in the wild. The species typically dives deep in subarctic waters to feed on squid and small fish. It is believed to migrate as far south as...

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Charges were expected to be filed Tuesday against the Colorado transient accused of killing an Italian honeymooner and injuring 11 others when he drove his car onto the Venice Beach boardwalk. Nathan Luis Campbell, 38, was arrested Saturday night after he turned himself into authorities. He is accused of purposely driving his Dodge Avenger onto the popular tourist hub at speeds of more than 50 mph. Campbell is being held on $1 million bail on suspicion of murder and has an arrest record that includes offenses in four different states since 2002. Alice Gruppioni, 32, was...

Nathan Louis Campbell is the crazed man who plowed through crowds of people, killing a bride on her honeymoon in Santa Monica. He subsequently turned himself into police. Why hasn't the media showed Campbell's mug shot? There are a few Nathan Campbells out there, but probably not many Nathan Louis Campbells.

So - has anyone in So California heard ANYTHING more about the hit and run driver who drove along Venice Beach? No names released, no age, no color of skin - no nothing. Why does that make me think it was a jihadi end-of-Ramadan 'celebration of death.'???

A driver who witnesses described as "moving purposefully" struck a dozen people on the Venice boardwalk early Saturday evening. Two of the pedestrians were injured critically, two were categorized as having "serious" injuries and eight others suffered minor injuries, authorities said. The incident occurred about 6 p.m. at the boardwalk's intersection with Dudley Avenue. "The vehicle appeared to be moving purposefully down the boardwalk according to witnesses," said Brian Humphrey of the Los Angeles Fire Department.