ABA Journal Covers Venice Homeless Crisis in November Issue

 Venice homeless issues covered in the November issue of the American Bar Association Journal.

http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/unwanted_guestshttp://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/unwanted_guests

VSA Calls for Ban on Luggage in Venice Beach Receation Area and for Enforcement of City's "No lying, sitting sleeping" Ordinance Close to Residences and Hotels

VSA Submits Public Safety Amendments to City Officials to Prevent Boston Marathon-like Bombing at Venice Beach and Other Major City Venues

VSA Also Calls for Amendment of the “No Sitting, Lying or Sleeping” Ordinance to Provide a Buffer Zone for Residents

The Venice Stakeholders Association today forwarded to City officials a petition from residents supporting public safety amendments to protect Venice Beach and other major outdoor event venues in Los Angeles from a Boston Marathon-like backpack bombing.  The package of amendments also would establish a buffer zone around residences and hotels throughout the City in which the City’s “no sitting, lying or sleeping” ordinance could be enforced.

“Currently Venice Beach, with an estimated 16 million visitors a year, is at risk of attack due to the ease with which anyone can leave unattended baggage for hours,” said Mark Ryavec, the president of the VSA.  “Unattended luggage is not allowed at LAX or Union Station and it also should not be allowed anywhere in the City where huge numbers of people congregate,” Ryavec said. “Our amendment would plug this hole in City law.”

Also included in the package is an amendment that would re-establish the City’s “no sitting, lying or sleeping on public rights-of-way” ordinance within 125 feet of any residence or hotel.  The ordinance has been largely unenforced for eight years as part of the “Jones Settlement,” an agreement between the City and several homeless individuals in Downtown’s “Skid Row” neighborhood to temporarily hold off enforcement between 9 PM and 6 AM until additional housing is built to house the homeless.

Jack Hoffmann, a Market Street resident, said the application of the Jones Settlement to areas beyond Skid Row has created a nightmare in Venice, especially on and near Ocean Front Walk, which is known as the Venice Boardwalk.  “By encouraging the establishment of large encampments of mentally ill, drug and alcohol addicted, and criminally-inclined individuals living on our doorsteps, the City has endangered residents, visitors and those living on the street; abandoning people helps no one,” Hoffmann said.

“Instead of forcing people to live with this danger and bear the burden the City will not accept, in Venice or elsewhere, the City should at least create a buffer zone around residences and hotels citywide where these encampments cannot remain while a comprehensive solution is developed.” Hoffmann said.

According to Ryavec the Jones Settlement does not preclude the City from passing – and then fully enforcing – a new ordinance that more narrowly tailors the sitting/lying/sleeping ban to those areas closest to residences and hotels.  “The settlement specifically states that the City’s agreement to temporarily not enforce the ban from 9 PM to 6 AM does not apply to any ordinance adopted in the future,” Ryavec said.

Ryavec also noted that even after the City finishes building the 1,250 housing units required by the Jones Settlement, any enforcement of the present sitting/lying/sleeping ban could invite a new lawsuit since the City still would not have enough shelter beds to accommodate all those living on the street.  “If the VSA’s amendment is adopted, and the absolute ban is challenged again in court,” said Ryavec, “the narrower ban has a better chance of surviving because it is tailored specifically to protect residents and visitors where they live and sleep.”

In the letter to City officials, VSA said that by not enforcing the sitting/lying/sleeping ban the City has allowed a lawless situation to develop along the Venice Boardwalk and on nearby residential streets, as hordes of aggressive, opportunistic transients attracted by mild weather and the easy availability of drugs camp out on private and public property, committing a constant stream of assaults, thefts and burglaries, defecating and urinating in public, and harassing anyone who gets in their way . (Ryavec noted that residents and visitors are not the only victims of these conditions; there is also a record of brutal transient-on-transient assaults.)

Ryavec referred in particular to a recent case that drew international media attention, in which a transient invaded a home two blocks from the beach while the resident was home, forcing her to hide on her roof until the police arrived.  http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/25/us/california-venice-roof-intruder/

David Krintzman, a walk street resident near the Ocean Front Walk encampments, said a robbery of his neighbor’s apartment had recently been committed in broad daylight by a transient who absconded with the neighbor’s laptop, clothes and other possessions. 

“From a neighborhood safety perspective, I am very concerned about the transient encampment the City has permitted to exist at the grassy knoll and pagodas at the foot of Dudley Avenue as well as the encampments which extend several blocks north,” Krintzman said. 

In another recent incident, three transients from Oklahoma stole a watch from a visitor while he was changing clothes in a Venice Beach restroom. When the visitor tried to take the watch back, the thieves threatened him with a butcher knife and pepper spray.  “The transients told police they were here because they had heard that Venice was a great place to be homeless,” Ryavec said.

“This culture of lawlessness has to stop and residents must have protection,” Ryavec said.

Public Nuisance and “Skid Row” Conditions Plague Venice Beach Recreation Area

Camping in Venice Recreation Area

VSA Again Documents Blatant Unequal Enforcement of

City of Los Angeles’ Park Ordinances

(Venice, CA/7-8-14)  The Venice Stakeholders Association today released a letter to City officials which again documents that the City of Los Angeles is blatantly engaged in unequal enforcement of city park ordinances, which has resulted in “Skid Row” conditions along Venice Boardwalk and beach park.

City Hall Park

The letter, prepared by attorney John Henning for the VSA, shows the pristine condition of City Hall Park, once the site of a large “Occupy LA” encampment, and LAPD Headquarters park, and compares them to the Venice Beach Recreation Area where there is frequent use of banned camping equipment and trash dumps along the Boardwalk.  (The VSA previously brought the lack of enforcement of City ordinances to the City’s attention in 2012.)

“LA’s politicians are enforcing every park law to keep City Hall Park and the LAPD’s park safe and attractive,” VSA president Mark Ryavec said, “but along Venice Boardwalk, the Department of Recreation and Parks and the LAPD allow campers to violate all the city laws against storing personal property on park land and the use of banned camping equipment.”  The result is that squatters have taken over the park from residents and visitors, many of whom do not feel safe using the park, the neighborhood leader said.

LAPD Headquarters Park

For example, Henning notes in the letter: “…occupying a sleeping bag or bedroll within a City park for any purpose is forbidden by City ordinance. Specifically, the phrase “for any purpose” is unequivocal and strips the ordinance of any requirement that a violator have the specific intent to use the sleeping bag or bedroll for lodging or living accommodation as opposed to recreation.”  

Campsites with Furniture Takeover Grass Areas

“Yet Rec. and Parks staff and the LAPD allow the wide use of sleeping bags in the park on a daily basis,” Ryavec said.

“These conditions are alarming to residents and clearly having a negative effect on visitors, who frequently complain about being harassed on the Boardwalk and are fearful of bringing small children to the beach in this part of Venice,” Ryavec explained.

Henning noted the lack of enforcement has led to a lawless atmosphere in the beach park which last summer resulted in the tragic murder of a young Italian woman by a meth-addicted transient driving illegally on the Boardwalk.  “Conditions at Venice Beach have only gotten worse since then,” Henning said.

Campsite Next to the Bike Path

The Henning letter notes that a lawsuit could be brought under the California Civil Code to abate the public nuisance the City is now allowing at Venice Beach.  Ryavec said the group is currently raising funds for a public nuisance suit.