Press Release
VSA Documents Blatant Unequal Enforcement of
City of Los
Angeles’ Park Ordinances
Public Nuisance and “Skid Row” Conditions Result in the Venice Beach Recreation
Area
(Venice,
CA/8-8-12) The Venice Stakeholders
Association today released a letter to City officials which 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 the once popular Venice Boardwalk.
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.
“LA’s
politicians spent over a million dollars to restore their City Hall Park and
are enforcing every park law to keep it attractive,” VSA president Mark Ryavec
said, “but along Venice Boardwalk, the Department of Recreation and Parks and
the LAPD allow campers to violate a slew of 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.
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.”
“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 affect on visitors, who frequently complain
about being harassed on the Boardwalk and fearful of bringing small children to
the beach in this part of Venice,”
Ryavec explained.
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.
