It Is Shaping up to Be Another Long Winter
By Nick Antonicello
One step forward and two steps back is the best way to sum up the conditions on the streets of Venice as the holiday season approaches.
I reported the closing of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream at the boardwalk recently and now you have another potential encampment directly in front!
It is hard to imagine that such a brazen attempt to camp right in front of a business, any business is possible, but this is Venice where the rules just don’t seem to apply.
A place where seemingly right is now wrong and wrong is now right.
With the weather getting brisk and the need to get the homeless population out of the cold and inside, hopefully city and county officials will create a plan-of-action that will address these conditions moving forward.
Those of us fortunate enough to have a home and family need to provide empathy for those in need.
Yes, I am my brother’s keeper.
But when will those in government and the vendors and service providers compensated to cure these ills actually do their job?
When will LA City Officials take a “no tolerance” approach and fire those not doing their job?
When will service providers be held responsible and accountable?
When will things change?
And when will city coffers stop being treated like an endless ATM machine for the unqualified and incompetent to financially prosper?
It is shaping up to be another long winter with little being done once again.
Nick Antonicello is a thirty-year resident who covers the issue of homelessness and encampments here in Venice. Have a take or a tip on all things Venice? Contact the author via e-mail at nantoni@mindspring.com
