RVs Are Literally Everywhere and the Problem Further Expands and Complicates Closer to the Beach as an Extension of New and Forming Encampments Nobody Wants.
By Nick Antonicello
Like a sprouting daisy or weed, the proliferation of campers and RV’s have taken on invasion-like proportions and something needs to be done, especially here in Venice and closest to the beach and visitor parking.
They’re literally everywhere and the problem further expands and complicates closer to the beach as an extension of new and forming encampments nobody wants.
For Venice and Washington Boulevard are full of them, Rose by Whole Foods and dozens of other streets to say nothing of Lincoln Boulevard have been inundated with scores of campers, many without registration tags or even a license plate and some of those plates are out-of-state, assuming the owners are not residents of Venice or California.
So with the obvious lack of enforcement, these illegal campers continue to complicate the homeless issue from this crisis of permanently parked vehicles transferring the dilemma from the sidewalk to the curb.
The preponderance of permanently parked vehicles that go un-ticketed and take up large portions of public parking in high density areas closest to the beach are robbing tourists and visitors any semblance of free parking, especially on the weekends and as the beginning of the summer season is just around the corner, what is being done?
To date, not much.
Apparently the bureaucratic red tape is choking any semblance of progress or solution as even our new crime fighting Councilwoman Traci Park (CD-11) has displayed her own personal frustration on a recent FOX-11 segment outlining the increase in RV’s throughout the community.
For it seems now as some encampments have been cleaned and cleared with fencing as we witnessed at Centennial Park and the Venice Library, the overall homeless population is shifting from tents to these vehicles that in many ways are a storage facility for drug distribution, prostitution and a whole assortment of illegal activity that continues to plague Venice and many of the neighborhood’s primary surface arteries west of Lincoln.
As the summer season is nearly here, the collaboration of elected officials like Mayor Karen Bass, Councilwoman Park, the LAPD and other city departments and agencies must create a coordinated strategy to free Venice from this caravan of RV’s gone wild!
It is unacceptable and regrettable that the nation’s second largest city tolerates such chaos on our streets and that even in emergency mode that this vehicular circus is not being combated in a serious fashion with a solution that can be tested and applied moving forward!
If we all agree the problem is unacceptable, then what is preventing real, restorative action?
The problem has been identified, the solution seems simple enough.
If you park illegally you will be towed. If you try to create a permanently parked atmosphere, the City of Los Angeles will take swift action and let those RV owners know that parking is not permanent and you will be moved.
Nick Antonicello is a thirty-year resident of Venice and a member of the Outreach and Oceanfront Walk Committees of the Venice Neighborhood Council. Have a take or a tip on all things Venice? Contact him via e-mail at nantoni@mindspring.com
