First Volume of our Series Hollywood Business Improvement District Documents is Now Available on Amazon!
Monthly Archives: February 2015
Complete Set of Andrews International BID Patrol Reports Now Available
The image of the cop writing the ticket is by Chris Yarzab, is released under the CC BY 2.0, and is available from the Wikimedia Foundation here.
Complete Media District Board Minutes 2007—2014 Now Available
The picture of the board was released into the public domain by its author and you can find details and your own copy at Wikimedia here.
Valentine’s Day Poetry Slam Special!
Violets are blue
Scansion’s important
And using an appropriate number of syllables per line and some semblance of competent syntax so you don’t sound like a total doofus is too!
Steve works so hard
Whether he is near or far
I wish he could go to a lake
Or maybe a Vegas escape
Lack of metrical structure? Check. Unintentional partial rhymes? Check. Unthinking use of brain-dead advertising-slogan phraseology as if it were human language? Check. Complete and utter tin-ear-itude? Check, check, check. He’s learned well from his master, whose classic response may be seen after the break.
Continue reading Valentine’s Day Poetry Slam Special!
Hollywood BID Patrol Sought in 2013 to Hire Off-Duty LAPD Officers for Video Monitoring
Here are a couple of documents regarding the Hollywood Entertainment District BID Patrol’s request to be allowed to hire off-duty LAPD officers to monitor live video feeds. I’m seeking more information regarding this matter and will make it available as it comes in. There’s something interesting going on here in that the BID patrols already represent an effort to privatize policing in Los Angeles, thereby making it more opaque to public scrutiny. If they hire actual LAPD officers for privately assigned work this really exacerbates the problem, doesn’t it? The documents are embedded after the break and can be downloaded here and here.
Continue reading Hollywood BID Patrol Sought in 2013 to Hire Off-Duty LAPD Officers for Video Monitoring
BID Patrol Directive Orders Unconstitutional Coercion of Hollywood Homeless for Sake of Social Cleansing
If a BID Officer observes a person who, because of their homelessness commits one of the following misdemeanors:
- Obstructing passage on sidewalks
- Living or sleeping in a vehicle
- Loitering in a restroom
- Littering
- Use of facilities, e.g., sleeping on a bus bench for other than intended purpose
- Public nudity as is necessary to carry on the daily necessities of life
- Building a structure in a park or public right-of-way
- Trespass on or in public or private property
The Officer may offer such individual(s) the option of going to an available shelter in the surrounding Hollywood community as an alternative to arrest. If the homeless person accepts the offer of assistance, no arrest shall take place and arrangements shall be made to transport the homeless person to the shelter.
So Andrews International Security, with the full knowledge and consent of the Hollywood Property Owners Alliance, has directed its officers to give homeless people sleeping in their cars a choice between arrest or coerced relocation to a homeless shelter. This, despite the fact that common sense, human decency, and the goddamned Ninth Circuit all agree that people have a constitutional right to sleep in their cars, whether or not it’s “because of their homelessness.”
Continue reading BID Patrol Directive Orders Unconstitutional Coercion of Hollywood Homeless for Sake of Social Cleansing