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:......

Photo by Adam Rose/LAist After last Friday's urban deforestation of 2nd and 4th Streets in Santa Monica (see photos of it happening here), Treesavers, who advocated to leave the trees as is, are holding an over night protest on the front steps of Santa Monica City Hall beginning tomorrow evening as City Council meets. The protest is "to demonstrate their sadness and anger with the City’s May 16 ficus tree chainsaw massacre along Second......

Yesterday the infamous and ill-fated ficus trees of Santa Monica went on the chopping block. Despite a heroic battle by advocates and environmentalists, the trees were doomed to be downed. The use of Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" on the video is a bit much, albeit apropos to a certain extent. So long, ficus trees. [h/t: LA Now]......

"I don't know if I'm more sad or more angry," Treesavers founder Jerry Rubin said this morning as he witnessed Santa Monica workers cut down 23 ficus trees on 2nd and 4th Street. He stood on a stump where one of the trees used to stand for over 40 years -- it only took a matter of minutes to cut it down. "We'll be back again, and we won't get caught with our pants down......

Photo by ninjapoodles via Flickr On Monday night, Malibu took a big step for the environment: they forbid the distribution of both plastic and compostable carryout bags. It's the most aggressive plastic bag action to date for any Southland city, according to Heal The Bay. "Grocery stores, food vendors, restaurants, pharmacies and city facilities have six months to comply with the ordinance. Smaller sized retailers have one year until the measure is operative," the......

It seems that Los Angeles either loves or hates Father's Office. Among the reasons why to dislike Sang Yoon's operation: you cannot choose or replace food items. What you get is what you get. No ketchup! If you don't like that, then the recommendation is to not go there. Yoon will not lose sleep. However, if you want choice in how your food is made or adapted, then you go to The Counter in Santa......

My Bloody Valentine, who is playing a string of sold out shows in the UK is going to play the Santa Monica Civic Center, and you can get tickets RIGHT NOW. as of me writing this they are not sold out. The band who hasn't played in the US for more than 17 years will be playing two shows in Santa Monica this coming October, and you don't want to be one of the......

When you're a teenager, there are several big moments in life--when you turn 16 and you can legally drive, 18 when you can vote, buy cigarettes and get pierced without parental consent and then the next big moment is 21. Hold On!! Highways Performance Space and Gallery, one of our local internationally renowned centers for new performance (dance, music, performance art and any hybrid thereof) is turning nineteen this weekend!! And, in this day and......

South opened its doors a few weeks ago and already business is booming. I arrived for happy hour at 5pm, quite relieved to see how well they'd filled in the space previously occupied by that hideous dim sum restaurant which was a disgrace to all things Chinese. South looks amazing, with nice clear TVs on every wall, wide open spaces, comfortable seating, and tons of windows. I was rather impressed. South was opened by......

Good news for the Los Angeles area as Santa Monica High School placed top honors today at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Science Bowl in Washington, D.C. The bowl was created in 1991 "encourage high school students to excel in mathematics and science and to pursue careers in these fields," according to KCBS. North Hollywood High School, also competing, tied for sixth place after losing to Santa Monica. The Los Angeles Department of Water......

Dakota Smith over at Curbed LA was kind enough to submit this photo. "I'm over in Venice and someone plastered all of Abbot Kinney Boulevard with these posters on the street this morning," she wrote in an e-mail. Juliana Redding was murdered on March 16th and few details have come out as of late. Santa Monica Police were quick to state that the autopsy results would take 30 to 60 days because of a......

It's 5:00 p.m. in Santa Monica and the boys at the online video startup Bush League TV, who launch next week, are live online video-feeding one man's attempt to break the Guinness World Record for longest consecutive video game play. He'll be going for a minimum of 25 hours. You can follow them on Twitter, or better yet, sit at home on your computer and watch a guy named Jim play the video game for......

Santa Monica's Pacific Park ferris wheel has a new owner, thanks to an eBay auction that ended at noon yesterday. The winner is Grant Humphreys of Oklahoma City, who came in as the highest bidder with $132,400 for the solar powered heavyweight carnival ride that arrived on the Pier in 1996. According to the Daily Breeze, Humphreys "beat out five others in a bidding war that went back and forth through 35 offers." The wheel......

It's almost the weekend... | Photo by Kim Shattuck via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr See, I prefer the silent treatment to the stabby treatment: "A woman was in custody today for allegedly fatally stabbing her boyfriend during an argument at their South Los Angeles home." Watch out, flight-goers: get drunk and mean on a plane ride, and your fellow passengers might just duct-tape you to your seat! It happened to one......

With Father's Office branching out to Culver City with a second location this week, an inspection of the Santa Monica original seemed in order. I'll confess, it was my first trip to the Office, but I'd be happy to spend more than a few 9-5s there. To call the gastropub a burger bar seems inadequate – the Father's Office burger shares about as much in common with its local competitors as a BMW does......

This past weekend, the Green Apple Festival (MySpace), billed as "America's Largest Earth Day Celebration," was held in eight cities across the country (with the exception of Washington D.C., which was reportedly rained out), including here in Los Angeles. Performing live music on Sunday at the Santa Monica Pier were the Frequency (MySpace), School of Rock Hollywood All-Stars, Escalera (MySpace), Juliette and the Licks (MySpace), Ziggy Marley (MySpace), and Taj Majal (MySpace). Actress Amy......