Yesterday, Venice Action (one of Venice Neighborhood Council (VNC) Presidential Candidate Linda Lucks’s groups) distributed fliers throughout Venice asking for people to write the VNC and Councilman Rosendahl saying NO to OPD’s (Overnight Parking Districts). Click here to make it big.
Given the amount of recent crime in Venice, I can’t say that I agree with this. Unfortunately, things have gotten so bad with transients and homeless in Venice Beach that emergency measures are needed. If this means overnight parking zones, so be it. OPD’s exist in many neighborhoods in LA and they work well. (So read this flier and if you DON’T support it, write the exact opposite of what it says and send it to the people listed on the flier. Lazy does not get things done.)
The emergency homeless situation in Venice Beach exists because one group of people have been arguing theory and threatening lawsuits about the homeless for so long that Venice Beach has become quite the unpleasant place to live at times. While some well connected people (politicians) argue theory about little pieces of paper that you stick in your rear view mirror that cost twelve bucks a year, WE the people have to deal with horrid living situations caused by transients and homeless. It really makes you wonder if any of these politicians live in this neighborhood and if they get out of their houses on a nightly basis without using valet parking. Venice has always been a tough neighborhood, but even gangbangers have a code of ethics. The transients have no code of ethics besides “Give me MINE”, which does not work in a community.
Two years ago, I used to give the occasional dollar to those down on their luck around town. These days the homeless are on the offense, demanding and screaming at residents to give them free anything, from drugs to sex. They have proven that they are violent, as witnessed in many user posts on these forums. The social experiment has failed, or at least needs to be changed so that the lunatics are not running the asylum.
Despite all this OPD policy making, existing laws say that you can not sleep in your vehicle in Venice. If you want to make your own OPD zone, add the LAPD dispatch line (818 734 2223) to your contact list and use the phone number every time that you see something happening in Venice. If people call every night to report people sleeping in their cars, they won’t stick around Venice anymore …. so yeah .. why wait for OPD’s to make our neighborhood safe when we can just use existing laws to make it happen.
