No! Vember

Venice bids adieu to Danny’s.

6:22am

A mishmash of Venice characters gathered to bid farewell to Danny’s Venice, which closed for good in November after ten years of business. The bar & restaurant was quintessential Venice  Beach, with its eclectic mix of eccentrics and those on a not-quiet holy pilgrimage to tourism’s Promised Land.

Danny Samakow, the bar and restaurant’s namesake and owner, said he felt “fabulous” and overwhelmed by the many people who had “been changed by the place. But you don’t live for that you live for every day over the past ten years. The entire street has changed so much since we started. The sign wasn’t even here,” he said.

November 4th began with a county truck running over a man sleeping on the sand and ended with an officer from LAPD Metropolitan Division shooting a dog on Venice Beach.

According to Watch Commander Scott Stevens at Pacific Division station, the dog had attacked an officer from the mounted unit and had latched on to the officer’s arm before being shot.

Bad went to worse when the stray bullet hit a passer-by in the foot, the “officer fired, the bullet went through the dog and hit a female on a bike,” said Stevens.

Then tragedy struck when Jasmine Preciado was fatally stabbed in Venice on November 21st, near the corner of Pacific and Windward avenues in Venice. The mother of a three-year-old was three months pregnant with her second child.  Officers arriving at the scene found Preciado in the arms of witnesses. She was treated by Los Angeles Fire Department paramedics before being taken to a hospital, where both she and her unborn child died, LAPD Lt. John Radtke said.

A mile away, and just hours before Preciado’s death, Cameron Parsons stood with a gun in his face. An armed man had come into Simon’s Market on Lincoln Boulevard, where Parsons works, demanding cash from the till.

“I think I sped up a bit. I didn’t freeze I, sort of, just jolted and I was like, yeah, hopefully, it will be over as soon as possible,” Parsons told Yo! Venice. As he made his way across to the register, Parsons said he had planned to “pretty much, give the guy what he wanted and don’t complain. And then, I think Simon had other ideas and tackled him.”

Security cameras caught the struggle as Simon Mellor, the owner of Simon’s market wrestled with the gunman. Mellor says he did what he felt was necessary to protect his employee, and himself.

Amongst all the shocking November neighborhood news, Lava Mae was a beacon light.

Lava Mae is a mobile hygiene service for those who don’t have access to the basics, like toilets and showers.

A traveling shower trailer, Lava Mae provides a space for the local homeless community to wash. However, organizers said it does a whole lot more.  After launching in Venice on Tuesday, November 15, the non-profit committed to sharing the power of a shower every Friday morning with the neighborhood’s homeless.

“I wash in a carwash sometimes, but it’s very nice a truck came here today,” Maria told Yo! Venice at the launch. Homeless since February this year, Maria has been camping on Rose and 3rd Ave.

If you’re interested in donating time or resources to Lava Mae, jump online, LavaMae.org.