San Fernando Valley

Columbus Street Gang in Valley Faces Crackdown

The Columbus Street gang has terrorized parts of the San Fernando Valley with murders, robberies and drug sales, authorities say. Now the L.A. City Attorney's office says it has a tool that will help cops put an end to the organization's reign in North Hills and Panorama City:

Camera Tripod "Rifle" Sets Off Chaminade School Campus Lockdown

Chaminade High School in West Hills was on a three-hour lockdown this morning after police received reports of a man possibly with a gun near campus. The man in question turned out to be a student with a camera tripod. That's good news. Yet while students and parents in the San Fernando Valley h ... More >>

I Was Arrested on Hollywood Boulevard

More First Person pieces: *I Was Sick of L.A. Traffic. So I Took a Plane to Work *I Rode the Entire L.A. Metro in a Single Day *Why the San Fernando Valley Hate Needs to End Once and For All When I first moved to Los Angeles, I read a lot of how-to books on making it in this city. Hollywood's multi ... More >>

Man Blowing Kisses To School Children Sought By LAPD

A man was seen sitting in a pickup near a San Fernando Valley elementary school blowing kisses to the children recently. Of course, police would now like to have a chat with this well-wisher. In fact, they believe the perv might have done something like this before, according to an LAPD statement:

Lotto Scam In San Fernando Valley Nets Thousands Of Dollars

What if someone came up to you and offered to split their winnings from a Lotto ticket? All you'd have to do, in return, is cash it for them and put up money to show good faith that you're not going to run off with the whole thing. If it sounds like a scam, it is. But people are being taken right h ... More >>

Los Angeles City Council District 3 Primary: Absentee Ballot Results Show Bob Blumenfield Far Ahead of Joyce Pearson

Bob Blumenfield is well ahead of Joyce Pearson in the early vote count for Los Angeles City Council District 3 in the West San Fernando Valley, with 54.09 percent of the vote to Pearson's 18.68. But in this crowded field of candidates, Blumenfield must maintain 50 percent plus one vote to win outrig ... More >>

Taft School Shooting NOT In L.A.'s San Fernando Valley

Following another school shooting, this one at Taft High School near Bakersfield, the LAPD has had to clarify that this DIDN'T happen at the Taft campus in the San Fernando Valley. Really. The media is so East Coast-biased (it's not like more than 15 million people live in the area from Bakersfiel ... More >>

Congressional District 30 Election Results: Brad Sherman Beats Howard Berman In Bitter House Race

Update, 2 a.m.: Berman concedes.Rep. Brad Sherman has soundly defeated his rival, Rep. Howard Berman, in their bitter, $15 million intra-party battle in the San Fernando Valley.Just before 2 a.m., Berman sent out a message congratulating Sherman and offering to "do whatever I can to ensure a coopera ... More >>

Self-Driving Cars Are Party People's Dream Come True, But Party Buses Face Crackdown

So this week California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law that would make self-driving (a.k.a. "driverless") cars partially legal by 2015 while he approved another bill that cracks down on so-called party buses, which have actual live designated drivers. Wait, what? First of all, let's just say it for ... More >>

Irma Zamora: Two Good Samaritans Fatally Electrocuted at Scene of Chaotic SUV Crash in San Fernando Valley

Repeated attempts to lend a hand at a hectic accident scene in the San Fernando Valley went south last night, City News Service reports. After a big white Chevy SUV lost control while trying to make a turn at Magnolia Boulevard around 8:25 p.m. -- knocking over a street lamp, downing power lines, s ... More >>

Marijuana Dispensaries Will Stay Open Despite L.A. Ban, Some Say

When Los Angeles' marijuana dispensary ban takes effect Sept. 6, there will still be plenty of pot shops open, and not just in neighboring cities like West Hollywood and Long Beach. After we called several dispensaries this week we found that many in L.A. proper were planning to stick it out, despi ... More >>

Brett Cronin Gave 13-Year-Old Fatal Dose of Heroin, LAPD Says

Updated at the bottom: The D.A. threw the book at Cronin today. First posted at 8:03 a.m. A 23-year-old man was behind bars today after he allegedly gave heroin to a Woodland Hills 13-year-old who then died, police said. The suspect was identified as Brett Cronin. Sadly, a San Fernando Valley man ... More >>

Marijuana Raid at West Valley Patients Group: Michael Paul Hodges Arrested

Another medical marijuana dispensary was raided in the West San Fernando Valley this week for ... selling pot. If you're scratching your head, beware that the LAPD and the L.A. City Attorney's office believe that California's cannabis collective law does not allow people to sell weed in a retail en ... More >>

MAP: Los Angeles Is Bigger Than These Eight Major U.S. Cities Combined

Whenever out-of-towners complain about how hard it is to get anywhere in Los Angeles, we try to tell them: It's no more difficult than trying to traverse the entire Bay Area in a single shot. Because this city is HUGE. Like, half the size of Rhode Island. And because of that, we've got a whole serie ... More >>

AD 39: Alarcon Is Trailing Bocanegra Because He's Lost Touch With 'Comadre Network' in Northeast Valley, Says Political Consultant

Richard Alarcon is in trouble. After easily winning various elections in the San Fernando Valley area over the last 20 years -- hopping from the L.A. City Council to the State Senate to the State Assembly and back -- he's finally losing his grip. This became embarrassingly clear on Tuesday night ... More >>

Hand Sanitizer Madness: Top 5 High-Inducing Household Products

We've seen the new Reefer Madness, and it's called Hand Sanitizer Psychosis. After the Los Angeles Times yesterday reported that six -- six! -- teens in the San Fernando Valley showed up in emergency rooms after drinking hand sanitizer (for its alcohol content) in recent months, the paper set off a ... More >>

L.A. Arson Fires: Suspect Under Arrest, LAFD Says

Updated at the bottom with an official arrest (the third since Thursday). Fire officials now count 53 blazes in the arson spree. First posted at 2:48 a.m. Monday. The L.A. arson fires have sated the city's everlasting expectation for the criminally bizarre, but so far there's no Michael Connelly en ... More >>

Everything's Coming Up Noir

LA Session Drummer to the Stars Will Be Your Personal Manbitch If You Buy $75K Version of His Album

​Everybody has a price. Josh Freese, studio drummer to the stars (Weezer, Devo, Nine Inch Nails, Guns N Roses) is up to his old tricks with the upcoming announcement of his plans for his latest solo album, Since 1972. He listed his album for sale in packages ranging from $7 for a straightf ... More >>

$3 Million For More Water: Glendale, Burbank, North Hollywood Included in Environmental Protection Agency Superfund Site

There are so many great uses for clean water​The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announces two settlements -- for a total of over $3 million -- with companies believed to be responsible for "industrial" chemicals in the soil and groundwater in areas including parts of Glendale, North Hol ... More >>

Jeff Stenroos Lied, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck Says: Entire Shooting at El Camino High School Was Fake, Manhunt Cancelled

LAUSD's finest -- campus cops -- eff things up again.​Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck tonight accused LAUSD campus cop Jeff Stenroos of staging his own shooting shooting himself near El Camino Real High School last week, creating a fake story about a gunman shooting him -- and setting of ... More >>

'XXX' Domain Names For Online Porn Delayed But -- Breaking News -- You Can Still Find Smut Online (Somewhere)

diebmxPorn!​Implementation of the ".xxx" domain name suffix was delayed by the international organization responsible for such things. Darn. We need this. Because a name like YouPorn (.com) isn't quite clear enough for us. ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) postpo ... More >>

Shame On San Fernando Valley Porn Industry: 3D Adult Video Comes To TV ... In France

VividL.A. does 3D porn too, just not broadcast to your living room ... yet.​While we debate whether producers in the global porn capital, the San Fernando Valley, should be forced to use condoms for the safety of their "workers," adult entrepreneurs in France are making great technological str ... More >>

Rocketdyne Cleanup Won't Help Runkle Canyon

Historic fix doesn't extend to tainted adjacent land where KB Home plans 461 condos

American Medical Association Backs Mandatory Condoms In Porn

​The American Medical Association has joined the Aids Healthcare Foundation's calls for a government mandate that porn actors should be required to wear condoms. The association voted at its annual meeting to support legislation to that end, although it's not clear that there is legislation in ... More >>

Eight candidates scare L.A. City Hall

A September 22 election in Council District 2 may shake all the way to downtown

Morning Sixpack: A News Roundup

School Board to Cut $1.6B The LAUSD has voted to make deep cuts in a three-year budget, almost guaranteeing further layoffs and the elimination of summer school. L.A. TimesHollywood Denies Murder Former pot dealer and fugitive Jesse James Hollywood told a Santa Barbara jury he did not order the murd ... More >>

Return of the Native Habitat

Yesterday a ribbon-cutting ceremony marked a slight, cautious return of native environment toWikipedia the Sepulveda Basin, in the form of Bull Creek's revitalization. The "ecosystem restoration project," as it's known in bureau parlance, provides about 28 acres of aquatic and riparian habitat as it ... More >>

Emergency Response: Ambulance Feature Continues to Inspire

Plus, on Patrick Range McDonald’s Queer Town, Jonathan Gold, and our L.A. Infrastructure story

Morning Sixpack: A News Roundup

Hospitals Blocked From Skid Row Dumping City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo has secured protocols -- and a $1.6 million settlement -- with Orange County's College Hospitals to prevent them from future patient-dumping on L.A.'s Skid Row. Associated Press, City Attorney's OfficeHate Tags A white Los Alamit ... More >>

Morning Sixpack: A News Roundup

Scorched Universal Studios Sets Back for Summer Associated Press reports that the tourist destination will have rebuilt its New York streets, seen in Spider-Man 2 and Transformers, in time for midsummer. The N.Y. neighborhood and other movie-set attractions burned during last June's massive backlot ... More >>

Sylmar fire in Los Angeles could become a "siege"

NOTE: This post is about the Sylmar fire in October of 2008. For news on the Sylmar fire of November 15, 2008, click here. Note: 10:41 a.m. update regarding the Martin Mars amphibious craft capable of dropping thermogel. With a wall of fire hundreds of feet long in places, wind-driven smoke billow ... More >>

Festive! All! Celebrating Lobsters, Cheese, Downtown, Abbot Kinney and Valley Film

What to do in L.A., September 26-October 2

"Fill her up": What a Girl Must Pay to Pump

High-poontang fuel

Summer Coolers

Lords of Your Thermostat?

California Energy Commission caught in scalding water

LA Weekly Restaurant Supplement Table of Contents

History of Smog

Letters

11 Cool Views of the L.A. River

A Necessary City

Why we shouldn’t break up L.A.

A Scary Abundance of Water

Part 2

Too Much To Dream

Sweet Surrender

Bad Call

Mayor Dick makes spirited call to ol’ Hal

The Lady From Where?

Meet Fran Pavley: Westside winner

Corruptors

The rap on Styles of Beyond

The Mayor Blinked

And for L.A. it came just in time

Jersey West

Why create a Garden State in the Golden State?

Cleaning Up Tujunga Wash

Making nature safe for equestrians