A taco truck, not in East LA, but Echo Park | Photo by Zach Behrens/LAist There are over 4,000 taco trucks in Los Angeles County and those that do business in the unincorporated part of East Los Angeles are engaged in a "little war," according to Gloria Molina in the LA Times. Citing "unfair competition," restaurants say the mobile dining options are forcing their businesses to close early and lose a customer base due......

Best way for LA to bring in the new year: win the Rose Bowl. USC killed Illini at 49-17, winning their 23rd Rose Bowl title. 750 bills go into effect this year and the minimum wage is now $8 per hour! The news battle in Santa Barbara continues: Wendy McCaw, owner of the Santa Barbara News-Press, has lost in court over illegal firings. She "must re-hire and give back pay — to at least......

Today's issue of LA Weekly holds their top few picks of the 740 new California laws coming our way in 2008. The law that hits Californians on the most basic level is Senate Bill 33, which bans talking on a cell phone while driving unless using a hands free device. It also bans teens from using cell phones flat out while driving. Don't worry, you don't have to spend your money yet, buying that ear......

An article from the Daily News takes a look at the toll the 6-month old smoking ban in Burbank is taking on its local workers, most of whom are flummoxed by the fact that a smoke break means breaking the law. According to the article, one local businessman "Barry Kessler, 48, owner of a downtown jewelry store bearing his family name, has led the charge against the anti-smoking ordinance. In the coming weeks he plans......

There's no such thing as a quiet Monday in this town. Here's a quick look at what's happening: FILM: If you're a historic film buff, then head over the Academy Linwood-Dunn Theatre for A Century Ago: The Films of 1907. The event celebrates the year 1907 and its developmental contributions to motion pictures with a program of selected films. The evening will present a partial survey of turn-of-the-20th-century international filmmaking with trick films, actualities, primitive......

No one likes the stigma of saying they live in Van Nuys, so they chip away making their own new neighborhoods. To that, Councilman Tony Cardenas, who we admittedly give a hard time to on this site, said something that is right on target about this so called community pride: "If I had that many people show up to a community cleanup or an anti-prostitution night out it would do much more than changing......

This sounds fun... or not: the Apartment Owners Association Convention is this week at the convention center downtown. Here's another fun fact: they will be discussing how they can get the California rent control laws abolished, according to a number of housing advocate groups, including the locally based Coalition for Economic Survival and Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights, in a press release this week: Dozens of seniors, elected officials, mobilehome tenants and tenants’ rights......

Can we please do the OPPOSITE of adding fuel to these fires? A Sun Valley day laborer has been charged with arson after he was caught attempting to start a blaze in the Woodland Hills area earlier this week. Do you use your cell phone? Of course you do. The future of this important device lies in the hands of visionaries, such as the ones who are attending MobileCampLA on Sunday. And you too......

He plays the part on TV but Drew Carey is not all games all the time. The host of both The Price is Right and Power of 10, Carey moonlights as one of Hollywood's most visible Libertarians (see also: Clint Eastwood, Trey Parker, Jason Reitman). Starting today, he's taking it broadband via the Reason Foundation's new online video channel "for free minds and free markets," Reason.tv. "We need Reason to help fight the stupid drug......

No sex in the champagne room. No crying in baseball. No place like home. No alcoholic beverages served after the 7th inning. Add another to the list: No smoking in multi-unit, multi-story residences in Belmont, California. That’s right, when the law takes effect it will be illegal to smoke cigarettes in your home if you share common floors or ceilings with other units. John Locke would be fuckin pissed. Located between San Jose and......

A Venice-based organization has ended their efforts to bring NFL running back Ricky Williams to Los Angeles. The group, known as Wii'd, likes to get high and play Madden 2007 on days that end in "y." Williams, who was a college standout at Texas, has a strained relationship with the NFL due to his close relationship with Mary Jane. He recently applied to the league for reinstatement. That caused people in Denver to put......

Welcome to October! Metroblogging wants to know how you and your neighborhood will celebrate the run up to All Hallow's Eve. Kobe "I can't live with you, I can't live without you" Bryant was in a jolly mood today as the Lakers greeted the media at its El Segundo practice facility. Construction on a proposed child-care facility, once touted as the centerpiece to Panorama City redevelopment, is hampered by political and building delays. I......

I’ve always felt that political correctness would one day be our demise. When politicians refuse to acknowledge that the overwhelming majority of terrorists that try to kill Americans are Muslim, and 80-year-old Caucasian grandmothers are pushed to the side by airport screeners, political correctness seems a little absurd. When people illegally cross our borders and are then called “undocumented workers” who are catered to by Bank of America and our welfare system, Mayor Villaraigosa......

Happy first weekend of September - and happy Labor Day weekend, too, for our American cities! Let's take a look at what's been happening around the Ist-a-verse. The deaths of two firefighters shook Bostonist this week. Boston's firefighters bent over backwards all week long - first, they fought flames pouring from the Boston Tea Party museum, and then a restaurant fire killed two and injured many more. Their efforts make everything else - like Tom......

Guess what happens this week. Mexican trucks will be allowed to drive across the border and throughout LA's highways, bypassing local trucking companies entirely. Since 1982, Mexican truckers stopped near our border and transferred all cargo to American trucks, who would then deliver the goods throughout LA. Not anymore…Thanks to the ongoing, infinite wisdom of Mr. Bush, the border gates have swung open even wider. Why? Well, it could possibly lower prices on a......

Today the worst president ever got to share his thoughts on the worst AG ever, and the lies seethed out like snakes from Medusa's slithery scalp. This morning Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced that he will leave the Department of Justice after two and a half years of service to the department. Al Gonzales is a man of integrity, decency and principle, and I have reluctantly accepted his resignation with great appreciation for the......

With unseasonable weather descending upon much of North America, schools getting ready to reconvene, and sports seasons getting exciting, it's a busy time of year for us here in the Ist-A-Verse. Luckily, even with all the things we have to do, we still managed to get together to let you know what we've all been up to. After cooling down from a hot weekend of many badass Sunset Junction Street Fair photo dispatches, LAist asked......

CBS says it is one parent distorting the picture of Kid Nation, a reality show about 40 kids, 40 days and no adults that premieres on September 19th. But news outlets are on the attack with Lisa de Moraes of The TV Column at The Washington Post rounding up the media coverage: The news reports on "Kid Nation" to date are the stuff PR-nightmare legends are made of: charges of thwarting child-labor laws; parents......

Morris Day & the Time, Sea Wolf, The Broken West, Ben Harper, Blonde Redhead, The Emotions, Medusa, Breakestra, Autolux, Culver City Dub Collective, The Parson Red Heads, The Pity Party, Division Day, others @ Sunset Junction (10a-10p) Yolanda Adams, Angie Stone, Clarence Carter, The Laws Family, Eloise Laws, Barbara Morrison, Linda Hopkins, Billy Valentine @ Compton Summer Soul Jam, Par 3 Golf Course Stevie Nicks, ZZ Top, The Pretenders, Stray Cats, Sugar Ray @......

As a vegan, I enjoy and prefer making my own meals. I never have to worry about what someone is putting into my food, not to mention it’s easier, cheaper, and more interesting than dining out. But when 80% of my waking hours are spent outside my home, biking around the city, I need to have options. I can only fit so much fruit in my backpack. So, I’ve begun building a mental index of......

Indiana Pacers star power forward Jermaine O'Neal wants to be traded to the Lakers. Bad. Even Southern California is starting to feel the pinch of congestion and overcrowding. Frustration with a lack of action at the federal level has prompted states to enact a raft of new immigration laws in the first 6 months of 2007 - more than twice the number that was passed during the same period last year. A North Hollywood......

By week's end, LA is littered with dozens of free rags. LAist reads the weeklies so you don't have to. If there's anything we missed, let us know, or better yet drop it in the comments section below. Downtown News dedicated about half of its July 30 issue to the long-awaited opening of Ralph's at Ninth and Flower. The cover story is here with more here, here, and here. Kathleen Nye Flynn examined the......

A culture of secrecy that led bishops to place the interest of the Catholic Church ahead of the safety of the children. Sound familiar? That was one of the conclusions of The Ferns Report, which was a study that found 24 priests in a tiny enclave in Ireland that was responsible for the sexual abuse of over 100 boys and girls. Another conclusion was that the Catholic Church knew of their dirty little secret......

Don't call it a comeback, but Hollywood Blvd. will soon look very different. Today the Los Angeles City Council approved a $400 million, 7-building, mix-use complex that will feature 1,000 apartments as well as several shops and restaurants. Built on the parking lots around the Pantages theater in the once-glorious center of Hollywood (Hollywood & Vine), the council voted unanimously to change zoning laws to allow for construction to begin at the end of......

In what is likely to be just the second amongst many casualties in the presidential race (if you'll remember, Democratic hopeful and former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack already dropped out in late February), Republican candidate James Gilmore formally announced that he was dropping his 2008 bid a few days ago, citing low fund-raising numbers. While several of his Republican rivals had already managed to raise tens of millions of dollars in the previous quarter,......

It must feel flattering to be Air Quality Management District chairman William Burke. After all, how often can a legislator claim to have a bill introduced by colleagues whose sole purpose would be to ensure that he/she remains in office indefinitely? That seems to be the exact goal of SB 886, a piece of legislation authored by Senator Gloria Negrete McLeod, D-Chino, that would specifically exempt Burke from the current two-term limit. Burke has......

Rarely does anything good come from the keyboard of an anonymous negative commentor. Despite the fact that one could hide from the bushes and snipe at people from the bushes doesn't mean that one should. Likewise, when commentors refuse to put their real name next to their criticism, the validity of the statement should be seriously questioned, as should its motives. Case in point this week comes from the CEO of one of the......

In case you’re not up-to-date on all the burial happenings going on nowadays, the ever so hated N-word was put to rest in Detroit, MI., taking on similarities to the organization’s mock burial of the Jim Crow laws in Detroit in 1944. The NAACP held a mock funeral for the word to symbolically call an end to oppressing terminology that has flooded the American society. The funeral comes in retaliation to the degrading images of......

Even when you are an dishonest person, a tiny bit of honesty can go a long way. LA City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo could have avoided a week of scrutiny if he only told the truth a week and a half ago when asked by reporters if his wife was using his city-assigned vehicle when it was damaged and paid for by the taxpayers. Instead, he avoided questions for a simple answer until the LA Times......

Today, Councilman Dennis Zine's office announced in a press release a victory for the City in a court case against Frisky Kitty Strip Club, located in Tarzana. Basically, LAMC 12.70, a City of Los Angeles municipal code, prohibits nude dancing within 500 feet of a residential community. Today, the court issued a permanent injunction ordering the owners of the Frisky Kitty to comply with LAMC 12.70 immediately, and imposed $90,000 on the owner of the......