The Brief

When Carly Usdin started inviting friends to the Magic Castle, they always sent them a link ahead of time — the Castle’s dress code guidelines.

The club’s website lists a full breakdown of acceptable attire — “tie and suit,” “ravishing dresses” — and lists restricted choices: “all denim,” “skorts.” Back in 2015, the site presented a gendered breakdown of the dress code, asking men to “think business attire” and women “elegant attire.”

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Carly included the link as a joke, but it was also a warning.

“We could have a laugh,” says Carly. “And also, I think probably subconsciously to prepare them for stepping back in time in this space a little bit.”

Screenshot of Magic Castle dress code from its website, from March 2023.

Carly is trans and non-binary. Back in 2015, Carly identified as a woman, and they say that throughout their gender journey, their appearance at the Castle was always the same: gender neutral, short hair and a suit. Carly says they were usually read male in the Castle.

“It is like you are back in time in the ‘50s and anyone in a suit is a guy, anyone in a dress is a gal, and the guys should hold the door open for the gals,” says Carly.

For Carly, complicating this binary worldview meant dealing with discomfort.

“When I would be in that space, I would actively try to make myself smaller,” says Carly. “And when I brought people, there was that mix of pridefully showing them around, but also knowing that most of the people that work here are gonna call me sir.”

Carly's disillusionment

Initially, Carly accepted their discomfort as a trade-off of being a Castle member. But as they spent more time at the Castle, the gender dynamics of the club began to feel less tolerable.

One year, for their wife’s birthday, Carly booked a small-group experience at the Castle called the Houdini séance. Their friends would spend two hours with a magician who would summon the ghost of Harry Houdini.

“It's a little cheesy in a Disney's Haunted Mansion sort of way,” Carly says, “but so fun.”

The Houdini Seance Room at The Magic Castle on October 24, 2008.

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They specifically requested a woman magician to lead the performance.

“And we get there and it's just some dude and no one told us about the switch,” says Carly. “And we had a group of like queer people, trans people, Black people. And this guy trying to talk to us was like misgendering everybody in our group. Saying ma'am to people who are trans men. [Making] assumptions of heterosexuality, like, ‘Who's your husband? Who's a handsome man in your life?’”

Carly was starting to realize that the old-timey atmosphere they’d initially been so charmed by had drawbacks.

“You're like, first of all, this person's queer. Second of all, what does that have to do with Houdini?”

Carly noticed the way sexism was baked into performances and casual conversation at the club. They’d invite friends to shows, and then watch as male magicians filled their patter with jokes at the expense of women.

“I just started worrying that I was bringing people into a space where they might not be safe and I couldn't do that anymore,” says Carly. “I felt complicit and accountable.”

First, Carly stopped bringing their friends. Then they stopped learning magic. And they completely let go of their aspirations to start a club for queer magicians.

Carly Usdin, in their Magic Castle days.

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“I guess I never really felt welcome enough to try to make it better,” says Carly. “I was definitely not advocating, trying to make my voice heard in a way that like I would normally do in my career. And I don't know if that's the difference between a career and a hobby. I didn't want everything in my life to be that struggle.”

After five years as a member of the Castle, Carly stopped going altogether.

They say it wasn’t a conscious decision. They still paid dues, but they let life get in the way.

'A little lady doesn’t do any magic'

Casual misogyny has always been part of Kayla Drescher’s experience in magic.

“I've been doing magic since I was 7 and the very first day I walked into a magic club, the other kids told me magic isn't for girls,” says Kayla. “And one kid offered that if I wanted, I could stay and be his assistant.”

Kayla became a professional magician nonetheless, specializing in mentalism, bar magic and comedy-based magic. She joined the Castle around the same time as Carly, but as a performer and teacher rather than a hobbyist magician.

As a booked performer, Kayla was experiencing the same unsavory aspects of the Castle as Carly — but from a much closer vantage point.

Kayla Drescher as a teenager doing a card trick.

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One evening when she was getting ready to do her bar magic act, she says a member came up to her and asked her for a drink. When Kayla pointed him in the direction of the bartender, she remembers him responding, “How are you not the bartender?” When she told him she was the magician, he said, “A little lady doesn’t do any magic.” When Kayla started her show, he left.

Kayla wanted Castle leadership to understand they’d created an environment where sexism was tolerated. She decided to start with their booking practices. She wanted to quantify the Castle’s exclusion of woman magicians. So she and another member created a spreadsheet.

She found that between 2016 and 2019, the percentage of women performers grew from about 6% to about 9% — which tracks with national numbers on women in magic. But Kayla’s spreadsheet also looked at where performers were booked, which theaters and times, and she found that women tended to get less prestigious slots: brunches and early shows.

In 2019, Kayla presented these findings to the Castle’s Board of Directors.

When asked about whether this presentation had any effects, the Castle told us that as a result, they've made an effort to book at least one woman per week, as well as magicians from underrepresented backgrounds. They didn’t address time slots or locations.

Why Kayla doesn't go to the Castle alone

Kayla says that early in her time at the Castle she was physically assaulted by two different magicians, and a third magician harassed her and followed her out to her car.

She was a young magician in her early 20s, and felt too uncomfortable to speak up — afraid she wouldn’t be believed or that it would have consequences for her career. She also remembers that the staff who observed these incidents didn’t intervene.

“It was in that moment,” she says, “I realized, 'I’m not safe here.' To this day, I will not enter the building alone.”

When we contacted the Castle about Kayla’s experiences, they said if she wanted to talk with management now, she would be listened to and taken seriously.

Kayla said for her, it wasn't about calling out any specific members or staff — but about conveying how the environment of the Castle made her not want to speak out in the first place.

Magician Kayla Drescher practices with gift cards before her performance at the Magic Castle, on October 13, 2021

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“Magic is still this microcosm of the world, but of the world in like the ‘50s and ‘60s. It's a world of secrets,” she says. “It's a world of ‘don't tell anyone.’ It's really easy for stuff to just breed within the community and there's no outside checks and balances.”

A schism among members

In the spring of 2020 the Castle closed its doors due to the COVID pandemic. Then, that summer, the murder of George Floyd roiled Los Angeles. Carly Usdin joined many in the city to protest. Their friends clashed, at times violently, with police. Carly had journalist friends shot at with rubber bullets.

At home, Carly diligently followed the news online. One day, they saw a tweet shared into their feed — a screenshot of a Facebook post made by the Magic Castle.

Screenshot of Magic Castle Hotel post on Facebook from the summer of 2020.

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Amid the protests, the Magic Castle Hotel — the property adjacent to the Magic Castle — had let the LAPD and the National Guard set up in their empty parking lot. In the photo, a Castle Hotel staff member was giving candy bars to the National Guard.

Carly honed in on the caption: “Tonight our hearts are with the business owners and employees whose livelihoods have been destroyed.”

For Carly, it felt like the Castle had chosen a side. The parking lot move was a vote in favor of the police, and against the protesters who were being attacked.

Screenshot of Carly Usdin’s tweet, calling out the Magic Castle, June 2, 2020.

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So they wrote a tweet, calling out the Castle on Twitter. And then they went to the Magic Castle members-only Facebook group — and everything that they’d been holding in about the Castle, spilled onto the page. “I felt like I’d been really quiet and essentially complicit in some of this garbage for a while,” Carly says, “and I hit a breaking point.”

Carly’s post was long and wide-ranging. They wrote about how they weren’t comfortable bringing their friends to the Castle because of the sexism they encountered there. They wrote about the treatment of their friends at the protests, about what it meant for the Castle to give its parking lot to law enforcement and shared links to different resources — for example, a primer on white privilege.

The post ended like this: “I'd love to see the [Magic Castle] turn over a new leaf and become a progressive institution dedicated to raising up newer voices of magic voices that are not all male, not all white.” Carly offered their commitment to helping with such efforts.

“There's definitely a part of me that was like, ‘This is a teachable moment and maybe they'll listen,’” Carly says, now. “Although the tone I took was very dismissive.

“I had good intentions — at least 50% good intentions. And then I think 50% chaotic screaming and just having hit a wall and feeling powerless.”

Carly’s post got 105 comments. Some members commented that they’d never personally experienced anything unsavory at the Castle, or if Carly was unhappy, they should leave.

People argued about the Castle’s environment and the nature of that summer’s protests.

The Magic Castle, in Hollywood, California on October 13, 2021.

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Others responded with stories about racism and sexism, discomfort with the orientalist artwork and other problematic aspects of the Castle’s old-boy’s atmosphere.

The Magic Castle is supposed to be a non-political organization, so Carly had never explicitly heard the views of its members. And suddenly, they were all out in the open.

A turning point  

By late summer 2020, leadership at the Castle shut down conversations on the official Facebook group, so an unofficial Facebook group popped up — and for Carly, this was a window into a different world.

“It's like the moment they go to Toon Town in Who Framed Roger Rabbit,“ says Carly. “That's how it felt. There's like this Facebook group with all these progressive, interesting people that are at the Magic Castle.”

In Zoom meetings, members shared their stories and frustrations about the Castle — and also, came up with suggestions and solutions, talking about how they might put pressure on the club.

While the Castle did not apologize for the parking lot situation, after a small protest outside the Castle, they did put out a statement saying that Black lives matter. The Castle’s Board announced that they would create a Diversity and Inclusion Committee.

The Castle wasn’t alone in announcing its intentions to do better — institutions nationwide created DEI committees. According to the Society for Human Resource Management, DEI-related job openings spiked by 55% in the immediate month after George Floyd’s murder.

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“It definitely felt like a turning point,” says Carly. “Is the Castle going to move forward into the future? Are we going to be on the right side of history as so many industries, as so many groups have faced those moments of reckoning?”

In 2020, Kayla Drescher joined the nascent Diversity and Inclusion Committee — and Carly wanted in, too. They saw it as a chance to fulfill the dreams they had for the Castle when they first joined — to build a community and make it a more inclusive, more progressive institution.

“My anger and frustration with the situation had started to give way to optimism, excitement, hope. Like, I don't know where this is going, but maybe someone will listen,” says Carly.

And then that hope was punctured, by a single email from the Ethics and Grievance Committee.

When Carly joined the Magic Castle, they’d signed a Member code of conduct, agreeing not to disparage the Castle. Two members felt that Carly had done so, when posting on Twitter and Facebook.

They’d filed a grievance, asking that Carly be kicked out.

Find out what happens next, on Part III. Coming Dec. 13.

Starting Saturday, Nov. 7, the 63-year-old Vincent Thomas Bridge will shut down until at least March 2028 for major construction. Workers will replace its deck, which has become “severely deteriorated” from thousands of vehicles driving across it daily.

The Vincent Thomas, which connects San Pedro to Terminal Island, is the state’s fourth-longest suspension bridge. It handles an estimated 53,000 vehicles — including 4,600 heavy trucks — each day.

The bridge is often the quickest route between San Pedro and Long Beach. Detours along Anaheim Street or Pacific Coast Highway could double many people’s commute times.

Tate Allen and his San Pedro neighbors have begun referring to the closure as “Harborgeddon.”

The Vincent Thomas Bridge will close to traffic starting Saturday, Nov. 7 in San Pedro, Monday, Nov. 2, 2026. Photo by Thomas R. Cordova.Allen, with help from Claude AI, even put together a website bearing that name that has a countdown clock and a map of suggested detours.

Caltrans’ official detour recommends that drivers from San Pedro use the 110 Freeway to access Harry Bridges Boulevard, then take the 47 Freeway at Henry Ford Boulevard or the 710 Freeway.

That’s likely the route most truck drivers entering and exiting the Port of Long Beach will take, Allen said, and commute times could vary widely depending on the time of day.

He currently travels from San Pedro to his downtown Long Beach office three days a week. Once the bridge closes, his 15-minute drive will likely take 30-45 minutes, Allen estimated.

Ahead of the bridge closure, Los Angeles City Councilmember Tim McOsker, who represents District 15 including San Pedro and Wilmington, pushed for road improvements along the detours to prepare them for increased traffic.

In Wilmington, those efforts included “slurry sealing along Alameda Street and Harry Bridges Boulevard, with concrete repairs in some locations,” Sophie Gilchrist, the councilmember’s spokesperson, wrote in a statement.

McOsker is also asking the Los Angeles Department of Transportation to monitor traffic on Anaheim Street after the bridge closes and identify short-term and long-term fixes “if problems arise,” Gilchrist wrote.

Why is this happening now?

Caltrans began forming this plan after a 2021 inspection found that the bridge deck condition had dropped from “fair” to “poor” in part because of heavy truck traffic from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

That ultimately led to the $750 million bridge deck replacement project, which will also replace the center median, railing, fencing and install new seismic sensors and utilities on the bridge.

Caltrans officials say a full bridge closure was the most palatable of several unsavory options. Plans to just close the bridge at night would have stretched construction to 48 months. A mix of weekend and overnight closures to keep one lane open ranged between 25 and 32 months.

What does this mean for locals?

Business owners in San Pedro are worried that lengthy detours will frustrate potential customers and lead to a dip in sales.

Stephanie Crawford, who has owned Creative Pet Supply in San Pedro for the past 26 years, said construction on the 47 Freeway off-ramp just up the road from her business has already hurt.

Lately, she’s had “quite a few” customers from Long Beach asking how they’ll be able to visit her store once the bridge shuts down.

She’s been telling customers: “We’ll still be open, if you can get to us.”

The Vincent Thomas Bridge will be closed for repairs for over a year, starting Saturday, Nov. 7, in San Pedro, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026. Photo by Thomas R. Cordova.The closure might also be a headache for the historic Warner Grand Theatre in downtown San Pedro, which is just finishing up renovations of its own, albeit at an inopportune time, said Liz Schindler Johnson, executive director of the Grand Vision Foundation – a nonprofit arts organization that markets the theater’s events.

On average, roughly 10-15% of their audience comes from Long Beach, Schindler Johnson said. She’s hoping they won’t be put off by the longer drive, especially because the shows primarily take place on weekends.

Two of her eight employees typically commute over the bridge to their San Pedro office and are bracing for added drive time, she said.

“We don’t want to go back to remote work if we can help it,” Schindler Johnson said.

Meanwhile, Allen is trying to stay positive. The longer drive, he said, will give him an excuse to catch up on audiobooks and check out a new grocery store — the Northgate Market along Pacific Coast Highway in Wilmington.

Construction of the green metal fence around MacArthur Park will begin Monday, Nov. 16, with work scheduled to continue through fall 2027.

The city announced the start date Nov. 4, saying crews will install an 8-foot fence around the park’s perimeter. Nearby residents and businesses can expect some noise, dust and vibration during construction, although the city said mitigation measures will be in place.

Crews will work Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., and the park will remain open while crews are working. 

The fence is the city’s latest attempt to tackle longstanding problems at MacArthur Park, including drug use, homelessness and crime.

The city first approved plans for the fence in October 2025, and the proposal has since drawn both support and criticism from residents and community groups.

Some say they hope the fence will make the park safer, while others question whether it will actually improve conditions there. Police and city officials say the fence will give them more control over the space and make it easier to enforce the law.

Ana Luz Vazquez, a street vendor near MacArthur Park, said her main concern about the fence is what will happen to the unhoused people who stay in the park throughout the day and whether the city plans to address that issue directly.

She is also concerned that construction during the day could affect her ability to work because of traffic, less parking availability and loud noise.

Vazquez said she would prefer construction to take place at night so it would have less of an impact on street vendors.

“If they’re working in the day then how are we supposed to come here and who is going to help us survive,” Vazquez said.

Construction will happen in two phases

Phase 1

• Alvarado St. from W. 6th St. to Wilshire Blvd.
• S. Park View St. from Wilshire Blvd. to W. 6th St.
• Wilshire Blvd. from Alvarado St. to S. Park View St.

Phase 2

• Alvarado St. from Wilshire Blvd. to W. 7th St.
• S. Park View St. from W. 7th St. to Wilshire Blvd.
• Wilshire Blvd. from S. Park View St. to Alvarado St.
• W. 7th St. from Alvarado St. to S. Park View St.

Existing trees will be protected and monitored during the work, according to the Department of Recreation and Parks. Traffic control measures will be in place during work hours, and crews will post temporary “No Parking” signs near active work areas in advance.

Services at the park are expected to remain the same throughout construction. The schedule could change because of weather or other unforeseen circumstances, according to the city.

The city has allocated $2.3 million for the project, but officials have not said whether that will cover the full cost.

After the fence is installed, the city plans a second phase focused on adding decorative elements. Officials have said residents will have an opportunity to provide input on the design.

Residents with questions or concerns about the project can contact Recreation and Parks at RAP.PublicInfo@lacity.org or (213) 202-2700.

The post MacArthur Park fence construction to begin Nov. 16 appeared first on LA Local.

The California Coastal Commission voted Thursday to allow transportation authorities to build a quarter-mile-long seawall just south of San Clemente State Beach to protect the coastal railroad from rising sea levels and coastal erosion. The plan also includes a major influx of sand for local beaches.

Why this matters

The tracks that carry passengers on the Pacific Surfliner between Orange County and San Diego have shut down frequently in recent years due to rising sea levels and erosion. Rail authorities have dumped thousands of tons of boulders on the beach to buttress the tracks. Now, they’re hoping a seawall will buy them time to come up with a more permanent solution. Not everyone is happy about the plan. Critics say seawalls cause waves to refract and dig deeper, ultimately stripping away even more sand in the long run.

What else do I need to know?

Environmental groups and local tribal authorities say the emergency work has already ruined the beach. To mitigate the negative effects, authorities will haul in close to 700,000 cubic yards of new sand to San Clemente beaches over the coming year.

What's the official reaction?

Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley released a statement hailing the decision. “Today’s unanimous approval from the California Coastal Commission marks a major milestone to save our critical coastal rail corridor and restore San Clemente’s iconic beaches following decades of erosion and inaction,” Foley said. “The placement of 690,000 cubic yards of sand represents the region’s largest beach nourishment effort in decades and demonstrates our commitment to long-term coastal resilience."

She added: “Wide sandy beaches provide a natural buffer for our rail corridor while protecting our coastline, expanding public access, and supporting our local economy. Through continued collaboration with our state, regional, and local partners, we will advance lasting solutions that protect our beaches and preserve this vital transportation corridor for future generations.”

Can Long Beach police be trusted to uphold the constitutional right to a fair trial? That’s the question raised in a new court filing by a prominent defense attorney, who alleges the department failed his client, Lonnie Jacobs, when it comes to ensuring basic due process rights.

At issue is a now-former Long Beach Police Department officer’s long-undisclosed conviction for an out-of-state assault.

In his filing Thursday, Scott Sanders, a defense attorney, outlines how the department hid an arrest and conviction involving one of its officers from defendants and the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office for seven years. Sanders’ filing makes the case that the LBPD’s failure to disclose that information for so long suggests the problem goes well beyond this case.

It’s unclear how many potential cases could be affected.

“The defense submits that the repeated and varied efforts by the LBPD at concealment and deception … reveal a department that simply cannot be trusted to meet its disclosure obligations,” Sanders wrote in a motion to dismiss a case against Jacobs.

It’s a potentially major allegation. The 1963 U.S. Supreme Court case Brady v. Maryland established that law enforcement — both prosecutors and investigating law enforcement working on behalf of the government — must turn over any information that could help the defense win its case. Failure to do so represents a violation of a defendant's right to due process and can result in mistrials or overturned convictions.

The Long Beach Police Department has not yet responded to a request for comment about this latest filing, but previously told LAist it complies with requirements under Brady.

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office also has said it works with Long Beach to ensure Brady information is produced and has not responded to a request for comment on this story.

How we got here

Sanders, who exposed the consequential Orange County jailhouse informant scandal, was appointed to represent Jacobs by the court when felony charges were filed in May 2025.

Jacobs is facing up to four years in prison on charges that he brought a controlled substance into a jail.

Jacobs landed in jail after Erik Suarez, then a Long Beach police officer, arrested him in March 2025 on suspicion that he threatened a repo man with a gun. No charges were ever filed on that allegation, but Jacobs was taken to the sixth-floor jail at the Long Beach Police Department, where a jail staffer allegedly found a small bag of cocaine in his sock.

Sanders has argued the arrest that landed Jacobs in jail was based on misrepresentations and omissions of evidence from Suarez and another Long Beach police officer.

Lonnie Jacobs in a still from a police body cam on the night of his arrest.

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L.A. County Superior Court filing

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It wasn’t until Sanders attempted to subpoena Suarez, who left the Long Beach force in June 2026 and has since been hired by the Burbank Police Department, that the defense discovered he had been arrested in Cobb County, Georgia, in 2019 and convicted on battery charges in 2022.

What's next

Sanders is now asking the court to dismiss the case against Jacobs because not disclosing this information amounts to "outrageous governmental conduct” on the part of the Long Beach Police Department.

“One of the most important responsibilities placed upon law enforcement is that of disclosing evidence favorable and material to the defense,” Sanders wrote in the most recent motion, “and the willingness to do so even when said evidence is damaging to the credibility of one of its officers, hurts the chances of a successful prosecution, or damages a department’s reputation.”

The information is relevant under Brady, the filing said, because Suarez’s conduct in Georgia demonstrates “moral turpitude" — one of the standards that requires sharing information with defendants — that could be used to impeach him as a witness.

LAist has previously tried to reach Suarez twice by calling a phone number linked to him in public records. Each time, a man answered and said he was not Suarez, but that he was in contact with Suarez and had no interest in connecting him with a reporter.

The Long Beach Police Department told LAist it was aware of the 2019 arrest, but that the internal investigation was part of Suarez’s personnel file and not releasable under California law. It’s not clear when the department first learned of the case against Suarez, who initially faced felony battery charges. In 2023, Suarez was disciplined for excessive use of force. A report on that case, which has been released, references a two-day suspension for the Georgia altercation.

Former Long Beach Police Officer Erik Suarez received a two-day suspension after the 2019 arrest in Cobb County, Georgia.

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Long Beach Police Department

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The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office previously told LAist it was unaware of Suarez’s arrest and conviction.

Why it matters

Sanders argues that would mean the Long Beach Police Department had ignored years of legal precedent, policy and agreements with local prosecutors.

The motion to dismiss Jacobs’ case outlines what Sanders calls a “shameful seven-year history” of hiding that arrest and subsequent conviction. Not disclosing that information, the filing argues, demonstrates the police department has an office-wide policy of intentionally withholding information that would reflect badly on its officers.

Two years before Suarez was arrested for assaulting a man in Georgia, then-District Attorney Jackie Lacey issued a special directive stating that “all law enforcement agencies in Los Angeles County have agreed” to disclose the arrest and conviction of any officer who might show up in court as a witness.

And in 2019, in response to a Los Angeles County Civil Grand Jury report about the availability of Brady information, the district attorney’s office told the report's authors that it conducted training at law enforcement agencies regarding Brady disclosures.

In the motion to dismiss the case, Sanders argues that, given these directives, the failure of Long Beach police to disclose Suarez’s arrest and conviction demonstrates "institutional untrustworthiness.”

The motion asks the court to hold an evidentiary hearing, where Long Beach officials would explain why the information was concealed, before considering the request to dismiss the underlying case.