Results tagged “manhattanbeach”

Photographer and Manhattan Beach resident Jake Rome this morning let us know that officials decided to keep the popular park closed as city staff figure out how to solve neighborhood problems. In a comment, he writes: Just an FYI, the council decided to keep the park closed until they've developed and implemented a mitigation that discourages sufficient number of people from using the dune.

       

In early August, Manhattan Beach officials closed the popular Sand Dune Park for maintenance after a busy Summer with a high rate of visitors. About a month later, it was ready to be reopened, but didn't.

LA has a diverse cast of characters. Whether it's the characters with stirring stories or interesting occupations or the people who are just simply characters, this town has them all. In an effort to get to know some of those characters a little better, we've created "Seven Questions with..." If you have a suggestion for a future Seven Questions subject send us an email.

              

This weekend was the very definition of a beach weekend, and a perfect one for some serious beach volleyball at that. The 2009 AVP Crocs Slam Bud Light Manhattan Beach Open hit the shores Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and "Manhattan Beach is considered by many as 'the granddaddy' of the AVP Crocs Tour. Players say once you win in Manhattan Beach, you really have made it on the AVP Tour," explains their official site.

It's hard to juggle being a beauty queen and a wife and mom...but even harder if you add a whole other identity to the mix. Manhattan Beach's Susan Shaw was once Miss Hawaii International, and had a husband and children in Oahu who didn't know she also had a life here in SoCal. Shaw was arrested in Honolulu last month, after detectives here found her rented home full of "hundreds of stolen credit cards," along with "Social Security numbers, addresses and birthdays of victims and potential victim," according to abc7.

Long known as a beach volleyball Mecca, Manhattan Beach has, over the last several years, also been cultivating itself as a destination for boutique shopping akin to trendy locales like Robertson Blvd. and Sunset Junction further north, but with the laid back feel of the beach. We stopped in at Cami on Highland Ave. this weekend and found a treasure trove of jeans (marked down to $70), maxi dresses ($175-390) & gauzy summer shirts ($69-125) on offer, as well as eye-catching jewelry and accessories, including a wall of handbags worth making the trip down to the South Bay for.

       

The weekend weather gave us a hint of what's around the corner: summer. Now while a lot of people went eastward for Coachella, LAist covered all the bases this weekend, and also headed west. About as far west as you can get -- to Manhattan Beach and the Pacific Ocean. Here's our little tip for the summer: Be patient because a day at the beach is always worth the wait.

       

There has been some great surf in Los Angeles the last few days and Branimir Kvartuc, Founder of EppicSurf.com (it's like Facebook & Flickr for pro surf photographers and surfers), was kind enough to share what we've been missing down in the Southbay.

              

I was invited to dinner at Sashi by the restaurant's PR firm. I was very excited to try executive Chef Makoto Okuwa's sushi, who worked under Chef Morimoto of Iron Chef fame and was executive sushi chef at Morimoto in both D.C. and NYC. Now, I've found that people's standards about sushi vary greatly, so here's my disclaimer: I'm by no means a sushi connoisseur, but I've been to a few great places around our delicious city. I don't mind an occasional venture out to some creative rolls but will largely judge a sushi place by the quality of its traditional nigiri (fish on rice) sushi.

                            

The games are a mix of "world-class players, top college stars and disguised AVP pros" in costumes as if it were Halloween. There's nothing like it and after we visited last year, we had to make sure we shared what was seen this year, thanks to three Flickr users (Nataline/metaphora, Mark Hoffmann and David J. Sullivan).

       

When we first heard about Upper Manhattan Lounge in Manhattan Beach, we had to check it out. Apparently, they have a long martini list. Sure it's not a list with anything really intriguing on it (just one Manhattan cocktail) but it IS something unusual for MB. The lounge opened up this past July but we weren't able to get there til just this Friday. Hey, MB is FAR! Farther than downtown is from us.

Last month, the city of Manhattan Beach banned the plastic bag as plastic advocates promised to sue. And sue they did yesterday. "The Save the Plastic Bag Coalition has asked a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge to toss out the prohibition on grounds that the city violated the California Environmental Quality Act by not fully analyzing the environmental effects of such a ban, according to papers filed recently," says the Daily Breeze. When plastic bag advocates appeared on KCRW's Which Way LA?, they presented some of the weakest arguments ever in a debate.

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 in Santa Monica earlier this year. In 2007, San Francisco became the first U.S. city to ban plastic bags.

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 bag bans. Santa Monica is expected to join them later this summer.

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 they contend are also bad for the environment. Santa Monica is also looking into a bag ban that will also have more regulations on paper bags.

A vast knowledge of fine wine and great Italian food are not a prerequisite for visiting Talia's Restaurant & Bar in Manhattan Beach, because you could pick blindly from the menu and whatever arrived would be delicious. It's "one of those" kinda places.

Venues are still recovering from New Year's Eve as not many concerts are happening tonight. But that doesn't mean there's good music to check out. Local organic hip-hoppers, Swamphouse (a mixture of R&B, rock and jazz), open up at Temple Bar in Santa Monica tonight at 9:30 p.m. They are followed by the Manhattan Beach based reggae band -- International Farmers -- at 11 p.m.

Kids, Santa's surfing and he needs to rest up for another day of waves tomorrow morning. We know, it's Christmas and all, but Santa can't control the weather. It's beautiful out!

"The surf was so big, no one was surfing here and the Pier was closed. Apparently, all the surfers were in Redondo," explains LAist Featured Photos contributer, Jake Rome, about yesterday's surf. LA Times: No big waves yesterday. We beg to differ. [LAist] Lure of waves draws many from workaday world [LA Times] The Day of Waves [Daily Breeze] Photo by jakerome via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr...

If you're looking for 20-25 ft. waves, you better at least head up to Point Conception or past Eureka for even higher ones. If 7-14 ft. waves are your style, then stay LA.The surf will build throughout today and tonight, peaking Wednesday. By Thursday, the swell is expected to diminish into the 5- to 7-foot range, Seto said. A rainstorm from the Northwest is expected Thursday through Saturday, bringing more than an inch of...

The Dan Patrick radio show recently debuted in Southern California (check 570 KLAC in the mornings), but this isn't what he meant by "En Fuego." While often immune to the real world, local sports have been impacted by the disaster in several ways. Of course, let's keep this all in perspective ... the real losses are to the families and the real heroes are the firefighters. - The San Diego Chargers are practicing in Arizona...

Silly Jack Weiss! He thinks the Valley is different from the City. Tsk tsk! The Daily News takes the Councilman to task (lovingly) for his slip of the tongue. Halloween events abound in the city this time of year, and LAist is your best source for the hottest spooky spots: check out our continuing Halloween coverage here. OMGZZZ Kitten Cops! I can has ratburgerz?? The LAPD is recruiting feral cats to root out rodents...

So I'm sort of a musician and a writer, albeit aspiring, who after feeling like a misfit among yuppies that I continually ran into in the South Bay where I grew up, was thrilled to finally make the move into L.A. a couple years ago, specifically Koreatown and then Los Feliz. Finally, I was free to wear whatever the hell I wanted to wear, and not get hostile looks from people (I once wore an American Idiot shirt in Manhattan Beach, frankly just because I needed to do laundry, and received glares from every soccer mom I passed. ...Because Green Day are sooo controversial). Finally, I was not the only person alive who had heard of The Kinks. Finally, there were other options for live shows than hardcore punk and reggae. (I'm not dissing either; it was just limiting.)

Here are some of my favorite LAist stories from this week: Anti reviews a cd that was sent to him, he gives it a "Good", but someone from the band writes in to complain that it wasn't a good enough Peggy Archer showed us that Malibu is finding that whoring out their best beachfront homes to corporations isn't all they hoped it would be Charles Bukowski is my favorite writer, so I liked this...

                            

Although it might not be a surprise to you that Manhattan Beach has the hottest volleyball tournament, we had only heard rumors of the infamous Six Man and didn't believe the unreal hype. Manhattan Beach hadn't let us down. On Sunday we showed you a sweet photo essay documenting the AVP pro beach volleyball tourney that they held down there, which led us to find out more about the Slo Motion Wave. But what...

For something that is so reviled, The Wave has had no problem staying around. For every one person who says they hate The Wave, there seems to be dozens who are more than willing to do it, if not start it.

While the action on the sand was unscripted, the action around it was incredibly choreographed. AVP (Association of Volleyball Professionals) knows how to market their events. Yesterday the men's finals of the Manhattan Beach Open was held in the South Bay on the sands next to the Manhattan Beach Pier. AVP built a stadium in the sand, complete with corporate luxury boxes and flashy attention-grabbers everywhere you turned. The PA announcer joked with the players,...

James Rollins presents The Judas Strain 7pm @ Vroman's

Remember when you moved to LA just south of Downtown, and you thought all those people who got to live in Santa Monica and Venice and Manhattan Beach were so lucky? Or maybe that was me. Either way, you were (I was) overlooking one of the major advantages of living so far from the beach -- you can bike there and get a great workout!