It’s well-known that two of the major proponents behind the nascent Venice Beach BID, Carl Lambert and Andy Layman, are being sued by the City of Los Angeles for illegal AirBnB activities. You can see the pro-BID petitions submitted by these two dimwits here: Lambert 1 — Lambert 2 — Layman 1. By the way, if you haven’t seen them yet, the full set of pro-BID petitions is also available.

Anyway, I wasn’t able to find copies of the complaints online, and the Superior Court charges one dollar per page for PDFs, which is not within our budgetary constraints. But fortunately, the ever-helpful Mike Dundas came charging over the metaphorical hill like the metaphorical cavalry this morning and sent me copies, which I’m now making available to you:

• City of Los Angeles v. Carl Lambert and Venice Suites
• City of Los Angeles v. Andy Layman et al. and Venice Beach Suites

Note that Feuer’s office filed two other complaints against illegal AirBnBers, but as they’re not BID-related, I’m not discussing them here. However, I did publish all of them on the Archive. These make interesting reading, chock-full of accusatory goodness, and are worth your time. You can read them yourself, and there are some excerpts after the break.

In a particularly florid parade of epithets, the complaints allege that these pro-BID criminals “…were acting as the agents, assignees, partners, joint venturers, alter egos, representatives, co-schemers, co-conspirators or employees of each other.”

Furthermore, “Defendant Lambert formed, used and continued to use VSLLC [Venice Suites LLC] as a mere instrumentality and conduit through which, for his convenience, he has conducted and continues to conduct his business and management of 417 OFW [Ocean Front Walk]. There has been and is a unity of interest between Lambert and VSLLC, which is merely an alter ego of Lambert.

These complaints also reveal that neither Lambert nor Layman actually live in Venice. Lambert lives in Malibu and Layman in Santa Monica.

Finally, the City Attorney sent undercover investigators to stay in the illegal hotels!

On May 6, 2016, an investigator for the Los Angeles City Attorney booked a room at 1305 OFW for an overnight stay. The reservation was made through the Venicebeachsuites.com website. The investigator also visited the location and confirmed that the location matched the photographs of 1305 OFW on the Venicebeachsuites.com website. … Minutes after booking the reservation, the investigator received an email from “info@venicebeachsuites.com,” with “VENICE BEACH SUITES HOTEL Confirmation 25085” in the subject line.
…
The bottom of the email read: “We look forward to having you as a guest of our family-owned hotel. We know your stay here will be memorable. Andy Layman, Proprietor & Matt Moore, General Manager.”

And there’s a similar story about Lambert’s establishment in that complaint.

Anyway, BIDs seem to attract criminal and other antisocial behavior, including AirBnB associated criminal behavior, so it’s surely no surprise to see it popping up here. I will never understand how anyone in the City government thinks it’s a good idea to sponsor gangs of co-schemers like these misfits so they can form together into city-funded conspiracies to, among other wicked schemes, spend zillions of dollars on hyperenforcement of the most picayune laws against the homeless while at the same time running businesses whose very existence relies on flouting much more substantial laws. But evidently they do think it is. For now, anyway.

Image of Jim Morrison mural in Venice is released under the CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 by its creator, Roger, and it is available from his Flickr stream.