Driving or Walking from the streets of Santa Monica to the Beach Yesterday, Google introduced a new Google Maps feature: directions when on foot. "Starting today, you can tell Google Maps that you want walking directions, and we'll try to find you a route that's direct, flat, and uses pedestrian pathways when we know about them," explained Andy Schwerin, Software Engineer, on Google's blog dedicated to maps. "Just get directions as you normally would.......

Styrofoam food containers will be banned in city buildings, at LAX, and at city-sponsored events beginning next July and plastic bags will be ordered pulled from store checkout counters July 1, 2010, in accordance with a ban approved today by LA City Council. The decision comes just weeks after a similar measure in Manhattan Beach passed despite the threat of a lawsuit. Malibu banned plastic bags in May and the debate stalled on the issue......

The official count for Glow in Santa Monica this weekend is now at 200,000 people with 75,000 there at the same time, according to the Santa Monica Police Department. For the most part, comments left on an LAist post (and other sites) about the event were very strong and negative. However, from there, the biannual event can only come back in 2010 as a slamming success, drawing the same large crowd and pleasing even more......

"Ain’t no party like a West Coast party ’cause a West Coast party don’t stop” Some arrived early, and some arrived late, but the true die-hards at GLOW hung on until the bitter end. You can't really claim Westside cred until you've woken up face-planted on the beach.......

The GLOW festival started at sundown Saturday night and didn't stop until after sunrise Sunday morning. The event was hosted by the City of Santa Monica and The Santa Monica Arts Foundation. It was sponsored by local businesses including The King's Head Pub as well as larger corporations. There were various installations, performances and exhibits scheduled throughout the night, so the experience changed drastically as the event progressed. Earlier arrivals had many more entertainment options,......

We are all about the "people first" concept, which is planning for people, not cars when developing a new building or road. However, pedestrians still need to follow the law. Saturday night's traffic in Santa Monica for the Glow Festival was only worsened by the fact that pedestrians would cross streets against the walk signal's "don't cross" hand. Witnessed at just about every intersection, this left vehicles in all directions backed up and clogged at......

An estimated 44,000 people visited the first Glow Festival tonight in Santa Monica (Update: the estimates are now to 200,000 people total with the highest peak at one time at 75,000 people, according to police) . The 10 Freeway was jammed late into the night and the oceanside city was packed from the promenade to the beach. Tons of people were having a good time, but many were overheard saying, "where's the art?" How was......

Ready for your morning cup of irony? There's a list and map of all the Starbucks closures on the website of a newspaper making quite a few cutbacks of its own. The LA Times breakdown of espresso let-goes holds at least one surprise that may ease your jitters ... none are getting axed in the Valley, and only one is closing west of the 405. Angelinos obviously love their caffeine, even if it costs more......

It's the first event of its sort in the country, Santa Monica officials say about this weekend's all-night festival, Glow. For two years, the city's Cultural Affairs Division has been working towards this Saturday night, where an expected 25,000 to 50,000 people are to attend the from dusk to dawn beachside event featuring lots of art and music. "Visitors will have to be strategic on how they spend their time," explained Jessica Cusick, the division's......

Bicycle advocate Alex Thompson wrote on his blog that he ran various red lights last night in Santa Monica. He explains his actions. "Because the decrepit signals wouldn’t change for me. Every time I visit Santa Monica City Council I run the light in front of the Police Department. I wait and wait and wait before I realize that the signal is not going to change for me. Then I look around, make sure there......

As dusk was falling over Santa Monica Pier on Friday night, Ronnie Renner was rising. The motorcycle daredevil broke the Guinness World Record for highest air ever attained on a quarterpipe, which had been constructed near the pier's ferris wheel and roller coaster. A pair of towers, each 55 feet tall, were used by the crowd to estimate the height of each attempt. A team of surveyors used reflectors and lasers to confirm the official......

Note: Read Jessie Baylin's May interview with Michele Reverte. Last month, local singer/songwriter Jessie Baylin (MySpace) performed at the Hotel Cafe in Hollywood and Apple Store on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica to celebrate the release of her debut album Firesight. Opening for Baylin at the Hotel Cafe was Justin Connor (MySpace) and following her was local Zack Hexum (MySpace), who joined her onstage for a song, as well as Kenneth Pattengale......

Photo by Julia Brokaw via Robert Francis' MySpace profile Note: Robert Francis plays tonight at The Troubadour.You don't hear Robert Francis' name mentioned around Los Angeles that often, but when you meet a fan of his, they are not just a cheerleading friend of his, they're a true die-hard fan of his musicianship, his words and the hauntingly beautiful art he creates. NPR took notice last Fall and called him a "a young man......

Mahalo Daily has been locally focused the past couple of days. Yesterday, they spoke to people at the Santa Monica promenade about the effect of gas prices on their lives. Today, they tag along with the city's Bureau of Sanitation in South LA for a day of bulky item pickups. Good times.......

Mahalo Daily hit the streets of Santa Monica and interviewed people about gas prices and how it was affecting them. They also asked gas price predictions for January 1st, 2009. Everyone said at least over $5. The current average price of a gallon of regular gas in Los Angeles is $4.576. The highest reached was 4.626 on June 21.......

If there is anywhere you would expect a Tree Commission to exist, it would be Santa Monica. After the uprooting of 23 trees on 2nd and 4th streets (see photos here), the activist group Treesavers is urging City Hall to form a Tree Commission. The Santa Monica City Council was scheduled to take it up last month, but it was postponed until later this month. "Positive, passionate and polite phone calls supporting the establishment of......

Last night, the Manhattan Beach City Council voted and passed a ban on plastic bags, according to the City Clerk's Office. A month ago, the city tried to pass the ordinance, but opposition claimed the city did not go through the correct environmental review processes. Nevertheless, one group said prior to last night's meeting they would probably still sue the city over the new law. The oceanside city joins Malibu and San Francisco in plastic......

After both San Francisco and Malibu successfully passed plastic bag bans in their respective cities, Manhattan Beach is taking up the issue tonight at their City Council meeting. The measure is similar in nature to Malibu's ordinance, but opponents, Save the Plastic Bag Coalition, say the city did not go through the correct process to initiate such a ban and threatens to sue. Another issue to them is that paper bags are not addressed, which......

Last weekend's record high temperatures got people out of the house and into the natural air conditioning of the beach. And while a select (and dumb) few decided to get into fights (two times, no less), most enjoyed the hot weekend among each other sharing one of this region's dearest assets. Temperatures are to rise slightly over the weekend. By Sunday, expect to be feeling the weather in the upper 80's. With that, here are......

How cool is this? A free all-night festival on the beach and pier in Santa Monica with over 20 multi-media artists and music from KCRW, Machine Project, Dub Lab and other to-be-announced artists? That's what's happening at Glow, a dusk-to-dawn (7 p.m. to 7 a.m.) event put on by the city of Santa Monica on July 19. Of note, Machine Project will have an orchestra play from the buckets of the new ferris wheel as......

Photos of George Carlin via his MySpace profile Comedian George Carlin died of heart failure at 5:55 p.m. today at Saint John's Hospital in Santa Monica. It was announced a few hours later, shortly before 9 p.m., by his publicist. He was admitted into the hospital for chest pains earlier in the afternoon. In honor of the comic genius who made millions laugh, loved words and called bullshit when it was needed during his......

As gas prices rise and government coffers tighten, the city of Santa Monica's Big Blue Bus service is asking for Santa Monican's and the public-at-large's help for an issue that reaches far beyond the oceanside city's boundaries. The state is planning cuts to the transportation budget, something that already resembles swiss cheese. If passed, the proposal would wipe out 50% of transit funds by diverting half of gasoline sales tax to the general budget in......

Crosswalk Countdown - GuerilLA from Kelly Herrington on Vimeo. A crosswalk at Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade starts to count down. Once it hits 10, a group of enthusiastic party-goers begin to count down with it out loud (think New Years Even at Times Square). The clock hits zero, the blinking hand changes to solid and everyone begins to scream in joy. "Happy New Years!" This is the latest "mission" from LA's version of......

Photo by JOHNNIE W@LKER via Flickr The FBI is reportedly looking into a Santa Monica based internet company that crashed a San Francisco based internet television's network last weekend. MediaDefender, who is hired to prevent "alleged copyright infringement using peer-to-peer distribution" (think old-school Napster) performed a distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS) on Revision3. “Media Defender was abusing one of Revision3’s servers for their own purposes – quite without our approval. When we closed off their......

Photo of a Five Guys Burger by mrmatt via Flickr Nancy Luna of the OC Register's fantastic food blog, Fast Food Maven (it's more than just fast food), took a field trip out of Orange County to the East Coast last year and while there, visited Five Guys Burgers to taste test the talked-about nosh that many compare to In-N-Out. However, her findings led her to say that they are actually more comparable to......

The Santa Monica Pier taken on May 24 | Photo by Atwater Village Newbie via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr Last month, the classic ferris wheel on the Santa Monica pier at Pacific Park went up for sale on eBay, eventually selling for $132,400 (it originally costs $800,000), raising $65,000 for Special Olympics Southern California. Tonight, pier goers and city officials welcome the new wheel, dazzling in its solar power, energy efficient glory. "Like......

Right: The Afro Funke crowd at the Zanzibar in Santa Monica. Left: DJ Jeremy Sole | Photo by Zach Behrens/LAist Sitting aside DJ Jeremy Sole spin records at last Thursday's weekly Afro Funke at Zanzibar in Santa Monica, I asked how he chooses what he plays next or if he has a set playlist. "Nah, it's all about reading the people dancing -- their body movements. See, I'm going to put this salsa on......

LAist Featured Photos contributor Michael Zara, aka monkeytime, took this photo on Main Street in Santa Monica and makes an interesting observation: "The municipal code prohibits operation of vehicles over 6000 lbs. gross weight on almost all city streets. Escalades, Expeditions, Hummers, Navigators, Suburbans and the like are all well over 6,000 lbs. GW. The lightest Suburban is 7,200 lbs GW. The Hummer H2 is 8,600 lbs GW. "The code specifies certain primary and......

Breakfast! Whether you're gobbling it down in the wee hours to fend off the inevitable hangover, gathered around the late-morning table with good friends or family, or sitting solo with a good book and going the leisurely route, weekend breakfast can be a beautiful thing. (And you know LAist loves breakfast...we spent a whole month talking about it!) This is the French Toast Special from Rae's Diner at Pico & Yorkshire in Santa Monica,......

Photo by pink_fish13 via LAist Featured Photos Pool on Flickr BARGAIN BOOZE For those of us who would prefer to have cheap drinks at a happier hour than early evening, The Mint has the answer: Midnight Happy Hour. Finlandia drinks are only a $1. ART OPENING The work of 30 artists is presented in this brand new mixed-media show at the Santa Monica Museum of Art that is focused on puppetry. Participating artists include:......