The Brief

Cooling centers — designated locations where people can retreat when it’s baking hot outside — are a key public health strategy during extreme heat waves in L.A. The trouble is, relatively few people are using them.

Technically, pretty much any building that’s open to the public and offers a free spot to rest and cool down could be considered a “cooling center.” The city promotes more than 200 city and county libraries, senior centers, and rec centers, in addition to over 50 pools as “cooling centers.”

Then there are what the city and county call “augmented” cooling centers, which are rec centers or libraries that have extended hours, additional staff, water and snacks to offer, and a dedicated air-conditioned space within the building for people “to huddle, watch TV, play games — whatever the center can accommodate,” said Joseph Riser, a spokesperson for L.A.’s Emergency Management Department. These designated centers also allow pets.

Four “augmented” cooling stations will be open over the weekend, when temperatures are expected to peak. (You can find a full list of those centers, along with a list of participating public libraries and a link to a map and other resources, at the end of this story.)

Deciding which cooling centers to open

The city decides how many and which cooling centers to “augment” in accordance with National Weather Service forecasts for different areas across the county, as well as through feedback from city councilmembers, neighborhood councils and other government departments, such as the L.A. Homeless Services Authority and the Department of Aging, Riser said.

Officials pay particular attention to the forecast for nighttime temperatures, he added, as well as how extreme the temperature highs will be and how long the heat is expected to last.

Do people use them? 

The city of L.A. only collects data on how many people use the cooling centers that have been augmented, Riser said. During the record-long and hot heat wave in September 2022, when we just barely avoided rolling power outages, the city ultimately opened 11 of them. But it was Labor Day weekend, so many of the city's libraries, pools, and other “cooling centers” had limited hours or were closed.

In total, according to data provided to LAist from the city, only 2,254 people went to the 11 cooling centers over the 10-day heat wave. Still, it was a marked increase from the year before, when only 83 people visited five augmented centers that were open during a shorter, but still intense June 2021 heat wave.

David Anguiano, Recreation Coordinator for Mid Valley Senior Center, stands in front of the area set aside as the "cooling center." The Senior Center will have extended hours through the weekend but was empty of visitors on Friday, July 14, when temperatures were in the high 90s.

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Ashley Balderrama

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The hottest regions of the city had the most augmented centers: three in the San Fernando Valley, four in South L.A., and two in central L.A. The final two were on the Westside.

Those hotter neighborhoods also have some of the oldest housing that can’t keep heat out. The cooling centers there had the most visitors by far.

The Fred Roberts Recreation Center in South L.A. accounted for more than 20% of all the visits. The center is in one of the areas most impacted by the urban heat island. South L.A. has some of the least tree cover and green space in the city, the result of a legacy of racist housing and zoning policies.

But many Angelenos in the hottest areas don’t know anything about these cooling centers and what they may offer, said Agustin Cabrera, policy director at Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education, or SCOPE-LA. The grassroots group organizes for environmental justice and green jobs in South L.A.

“What we hear from South L.A. residents is they generally don't have an idea of where these cooling centers are located, and so that sort of matches up with what we're actually hearing from the city,” Cabrera said. “When we talk more about what they can provide, they’re generally interested, because for the most part folks either don't have access to central air or have cooling systems in their homes, or they don't want to turn them on because of fear of a high utility bill.”

Some of the free water and activity supplies at the Highland Park recreation Cooling Center, which will have extended hours through the weekend.

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Ashley Balderrama

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LAist

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Riser said the city spreads the message primarily via social media, mainly Twitter, and not always in other languages.

“We typically do things in Spanish — not nearly as much as we probably should,” Riser said. “If the council office knows that area well enough to know [language barriers] are an issue, they will get things translated and put things out to their constituents.”

But the message misses most people, said Cabrera. Organizations like SCOPE-LA work to fill in the gaps, using their close relationship in the community to spread the word.

Cabrera said it's important for the city to use culturally relevant communication, which includes not just Spanish in communities like South L.A., but other languages, as well — including indigenous languages.

The limits on cooling centers

Cooling centers are open to everyone. They can also be one of the only options for people living on the streets or in vehicles, but unhoused advocates have long said cooling centers don’t serve their needs. Among the reasons they cite:

• Not being able to bring pets to many locations (when activated as cooling centers, like this week, all city park and rec facilities always allow pets. Service dogs are allowed at libraries.)
• Being worried about leaving their belongings on the street unattended
• Past negative experiences of being kicked out of places such as libraries
• Many unhoused people are disabled or have other health issues that may make it impossible or dangerous to even get to a cooling center amid high heat

When a cooling center is open to everyone, it may serve no one.

“It's important to have the city understand who they're trying to serve when it comes to these centers, because then they're able to ask very specific questions about what those folks need from these centers,” Cabrera said. “And so apart from just being a place where people can find relief from the heat, if it's targeting unhoused folks, what other services do they need? It allows for a more focused conversation, an engaging conversation to make these centers actually useful."

What’s next?

Riser said the city is working to prioritize opening augmented cooling centers in the hottest, highest-risk areas, including low-income and older neighborhoods where housing is least likely to have air conditioning or is poorly insulated.

The city’s Chief Heat Officer Marta Segura has also emphasized the need for what are called “resilience hubs,” trusted community spaces that can be retrofitted with solar panels and battery storage to help communities ride out disasters and power outages.

Augmented centers open this weekend

The following centers will be open through the weekend of July 14 to Monday, July 17 from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. They all allow pets and provide water. Stay up to date with the latest information on cooling centers here. You can also follow LA's Emergency Management Department on Twitter @ReadyLA.

Canoga Park Senior Citizen Center (CD 3)
7326 Jordan Ave., Canoga Park

Fred Roberts Recreation Center (CD 9)
4700 Honduras St., Los Angeles

Highland Park Recreation Center (CD 14)
6150 Piedmont Ave., Los Angeles

Mid Valley Senior Center (CD6)
8825 Kester Ave., Panorama City

Cooling centers at public libraries this weekend

Additionally, the below public libraries will be open on Sunday, July 16 from 1-5 p.m.:

Arroyo Seco Regional Branch Library 
6145 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles (323-255-0537)

Exposition Park Regional Branch Library 
3900 S. Western Ave. Los Angeles (323-290-3113)

Goldwyn-Hollywood Regional Branch Library 
1623 Ivar Ave., Los Angeles (323-856-8260)

Mid-Valley Regional Branch Library
16244 Nordhoff St. North Hills (818-895-3650)

North Hollywood Regional Branch Library 
5211 Tujunga Ave. North Hollywood (818-766-7185)

San Pedro Regional Branch Library 
931 S. Gaffey St. San Pedro (310-548-7779)

West L.A. Regional Branch Library 
1360 Santa Monica Blvd.  Los Angeles (310-575-8323)

West Valley Regional Branch Library 
9036 Vanowen St. Reseda (818-345-9806)

Maps and other resources

You can find a map of all cooling centers and other heat safety resources from the city of L.A. here, and view the county’s cooling center map and resources here.

A California Senate committee just gutted one of the state’s most substantial DUI reform bills in years, despite widespread support from other lawmakers and families of drunk driving victims.

The bill would have required in-car breathalyzers for anyone convicted of a DUI, bringing California in line with most states. State law currently only requires the devices, called ignition interlock devices, after repeat offenses or injury crashes.

Sabrina Cervantes, a Democrat from the Inland Empire and chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, provided a hint of changes last week when she said there were amendments to the bill that had been approved unanimously by the committee. This week, an updated version of the legislation emerged, and it effectively killed a key provision to start requiring the devices for thousands of first-time offenders. Such changes are commonly referred to as “hostile amendments” because they are made without the involvement or support of the bill’s author.

Cervantes was arrested for a DUI in a high-profile incident in Sacramento in May 2025. The District Attorney’s Office did not prosecute her after a blood test showed no drugs or alcohol in her system. Cervantes then sued the city of Sacramento and several of its police officers, alleging that that police fabricated evidence and falsely arrested her. Cervantes’s sister, state Assembly candidate Clarissa Cervantes, has herself been convicted of two DUIs in Southern California, according to media reports.

Sabrina Cervantes did not respond to our request for comment for this story. We will update it if she does.

As news of the bill’s gutting spread this week, Kellie Montalvo was left wondering if there’d been some sort of horrible mistake. Montalvo, whose 21-year-old son Benjamin was killed by an impaired driver in Cervantes’s district in 2020, said she was just in Sacramento two weeks ago lobbying lawmakers – including Cervantes – on a slate of dangerous driving bills. Many of those bills have already failed.

“It’s heartbreaking, and I try to tell myself not to lose hope,” Montalvo said. “I mean, California has got to do something. Our numbers are horrific.”

Alcohol-related roadway deaths in California spiked more than 50% in a decade — an increase more than twice as steep as the rest of the country, federal data shows. More than 1,300 people die each year statewide in drunken collisions.

Over the last two years, a CalMatters investigation has shown how state officials have allowed dangerous drivers to stay on the road and kill, and how elected leaders have looked away even as the death toll skyrocketed.

For years, lawmakers have tried and failed to require in-car breathalyzers for all DUI offenders. Progressive justice reform groups and the DMV have opposed similar bills in the past, citing fears about unfairly penalizing poor DUI offenders, high costs and the DMV’s aging technology.

Montalvo and other advocates thought this year might be different. The DMV has actively participated in state hearings and, she and others said, provided technical advice to make sure the bill was realistic. Gov. Gavin Newsom also instructed lawmakers last year to continue to work on the state’s breathalyzer laws and develop “a lasting program that strengthens public safety.”

It’s unclear why this year’s bill was gutted at the 11th hour. Public records show that Senate Appropriations committee staff recently expressed concern about costs.

The amendment process is opaque even to Sacramento insiders.

“Honestly it’s sometimes a bit of a black box even for us as legislators,” said the bill’s author, Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, an Orange County Democrat. “I am still trying myself to get to the bottom of it.”

Petrie-Norris, who has spent the past three years trying to pass a version of this bill, said she does not believe Cervantes’ personal experience played a role in the decision to amend the bill. She added that she is still working to re-amend the measure after “unintended consequences” that she says would make the policy unworkable for the DMV and hurt California’s eligibility for federal funding.

Asked for an interview to explain the changes to the bill, Senate President Pro Tem Monique Límon’s office referred questions to Cervantes. Diana Crofts-Pelayo, Newsom’s chief deputy director of communications, also declined to answer questions about the breathalyzer bill, saying the office does not typically comment on pending legislation.

While the bill heads into the final days of negotiations, Montalvo and other victims’ families are grappling with deja vu. It was just about a year ago that they were standing in the Capitol with photos of their loved ones and told the bill was doomed.

She stays busy checking in with the parole officer for the Riverside County driver who killed her son. Last she heard, the driver was trying to get her license back after being released early from prison.

Long Beach streets got deadlier last year than they’ve been in a decade. Now the city wants to build a whole new division bent on reversing that, powered by the $5 million it expects to get annually by ticketing people with new speed cameras.

As part of Long Beach’s budget, city leaders are proposing a new traffic safety division, which consolidates two Public Works teams and adds more than a dozen staff who will administer a state pilot program for 18 automated speed cameras around the city.

A proposed traffic safety division

It comes after the city saw a record number of fatal traffic collisions in 2025 — 53 last year, the most in more than 10 years — that includes 32 pedestrians, cyclists and e-scooter riders killed. That eclipsed the number of people murdered in the city that year.

High rates of traffic deaths and collisions coincide with a record number of public requests to overhaul dangerous arterial streets, calibrate traffic lights and add traffic calming measures to neighborhoods known for dangerous driving. Long Beach currently sits on a backlog of more than 1,400 open traffic requests.

Many delays are tied to the 4% completion rate of traffic investigations. Officials explained many of those unresolved cases involve arterial streets the city already knows need expensive, yearslong overhauls. Neighborhood traffic calming requests have also spiked, from about 35 in the second half of last fiscal year to 306 in the first half of this one.

Councilmember Joni Ricks-Oddie said the shift reflects years of pressure from residents.

She added that the old system wasn’t built for the volume of requests coming in now.

“I think we all recognize that the old ways of managing these requests simply just wasn’t working for the volume that we are seeing come into Public Works,” she said.

Public Works Director Josh Hickman put it more bluntly: “We’re barely keeping up,” citing data that requests have risen swiftly this year compared to late last year.

He explained the current model only adds unnecessary delays, even on simple fixes.

“In order to do street sweeping and in order to enforce parking control, you need to have signs,” he said as an example. “Those require our engineers to review and approve the signs, which are in a different bureau. Once it gets approved, well, then it requires another bureau to go and install those signs.”

The new division could streamline the city's traffic system

This division would alleviate that, he said, by folding the city’s existing traffic engineering and traffic operations divisions into one unit under the Transportation Services Bureau.

The new division will be powered by citation revenue generated from the city’s automated speed enforcement program, a state pilot that will bring 18 cameras to handpicked streets and intersections later this fall, with warnings starting in October and citations beginning in December.

Officials say the cameras will rake in about $5 million a year, half of which will go toward operating costs with the other half restricted to funding traffic-calming projects.

Hickman called that estimate “quite conservative,” in hopes that the cameras will discourage drivers afraid of paying for tickets — which start at $50 for those driving 11 mph over the limit.

New speed cameras

It’s a program that has seen success in other California cities.

In San Francisco, the program’s 56 cameras led to 163,906 citations and brought in $7.2 million in its first year, according to the city’s transit agency. About 65% of drivers who got a warning or ticket didn’t reoffend, and 82% were cited no more than once or twice over the year.

Madhu Unnikrishnan, a spokesman for SFMTA, said that has led to $3 million in street improvements across San Francisco, while the rate of drivers going 10 mph or more over the limit has fallen by 80% in the enforcement areas.

By state law, that money has to cover operating costs first, and anything left over must go toward traffic calming — such as crosswalk upgrades, no-turn-on-red signs, speed humps — within three years. It can’t be spent on anything else, even to help close a city’s budget gap.

Jonathon Bolin, a Public Works bureau manager, emphasized that the point of the cameras is to change driver behavior and discourage speeding, not “bankroll revenue.”

Long Beach’s 2027 budget would add seven new traffic and five new customer service positions to the division. Hickman said the department plans to fill the new positions “as quickly as possible.”

Seperately, the city is also proposing $37.3 million for roadway improvements, curb and sidewalk improvements and traffic safety projects funded by the Measure A sales tax.

An additional effort by state Sen. Lena Gonzalez is looking to place more speed cameras along Pacific Coast Highway.

Bellflower isn’t exactly known for its stand-up comedy culture. But that may be changing.

Since 2021, comedians like Tisha Campbell, Frankie Quiñones and Jo Koy have taken the stage at The Stand Up Comedy Club in downtown Bellflower.

“We knew that the Downeys, the Cerritos, the Lakewoods, the Long Beaches, the Norwalks, and Compton and Paramount would come,” said general manager and co-owner John Giries. “That was our bet, and it's been working.”

Jo Koy (left) and Finesse Mitchell (right) take the stage at The Stand Up Comedy Club in Bellflower.

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Courtesy The Stand Up Comedy Club

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From a comedy magazine to a comedy club

Giries, a former stand-up comedian himself, grew up in Bellflower. He co-created and helped run The Stand Up Comedy Magazine in the mid-aughts, along with his late friend and fellow comedian Julian Vazquez. Names such as Maz Jobrani, Sebastian Maniscalco and Rachel Feinstein all graced its cover.

After Vazquez’s passing in 2020, Giries decided to put the magazine on hold indefinitely and launch a comedy club.

The Stand Up Comedy Club in Bellflower.

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Audrey Ngo

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Giries’ family was an investor in Hambone’s BBQ Smokehouse on Belmont Street, next door to the Bellflower Theatre, downtown. He recalled seeing that theater for the first time and how it felt like something out of a movie…

“It was one of those moments like "Field of Dreams" where Kevin Costner saw the baseball diamond being built in the cornfield,” Giries said. “And I kind of looked at it and said, ‘you know, I can see it.’”

Tisha Campbell takes the stage at The Stand Up Comedy Club in Bellflower.

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Courtesy The Stand Up Comedy Club

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After doing gut renovations and waiting through the first year of the pandemic, Giries and his wife and co-owner, Scarlett, opened the club in June 2021.

The roughly 2,400-square-foot space space seats 140 and has a full bar with a steakhouse feel. Photos and memorabilia of Robin Williams, Richard Pryor and Phyllis Diller pay tribute to some of comedy’s legends.

Why Bellflower, not Hollywood

Giries had always planned to have famous comedians perform here. He chose Bellflower because it didn’t have the competition of legacy clubs such as the Improv, The Comedy Store or the Laugh Factory. It was also a closer alternative for locals who didn’t want to brave Hollywood traffic and pay for valet parking.

Interior of The Stand Up Comedy Club in Bellflower.

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Audrey Ngo

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LAist

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Interior and stage of The Stand Up Comedy Club in Bellflower.

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Audrey Ngo

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LAist

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“[Bellflower] fit the criteria of what we wanted to do. It's not in the desert. You're not by the beach and it's easy to get to if you live in a five to 10 mile radius,” Giries said.

“So never L.A. Never thought about it once.”

Landing the headliners

For the first three years of opening the club, Giries focused on getting big-name acts. He had already made connections with notable performers through his magazine, and was able to enlist help from talent bookers including Richard Barrett, who was the entertainment director for The Comedy and Magic Club in Hermosa Beach. Giries credits Barrett as “one of the best bookers in L.A.”

Since then, Deon Cole, Sheryl Underwood, Paul Reiser, Billy Gardell, Chaunté Wayans and others have taken the stage.

That list is growing.

Stormy Daniels visited the club in July on her "Unicorns in the Kitchen" storytelling and comedy tour. Last week, Jamie Foxx produced and hosted a comedy special featuring Donald Ray “Speedy” Caldwell. All four shows were sold out.

Giries recognizes that the club is still young, but is proud of what they’ve accomplished since opening five years ago.

“No one remembers, ‘Hey, they've been here for 30 years,'" Giries said. “They just remember, ‘Man, that club was kind of cool. They really took care of us. That was really funny stuff there.’”

Even in the era of YouTube tutorials and AI assistants, learning weekend warrior skills — like how to fix a leaky faucet or the brakes on your kid’s bike — is sometimes better IRL.

On Saturday, Aug. 29, a community of DIYers will come together at a Skillshare Fair to teach and learn about things like clothing repair and alterations, how to use power tools, gardening techniques and more. The event is organized by the Los Angeles Tool Library in Koreatown and the Democratic Socialists of America, Los Angeles.

Vi Hoang-Creton, an event coordinator with the Los Angeles Tool Library, said the benefits of hosting events like this are manifold. It’s great to keep stuff out of the landfill, but it’s also a place to make friends and build community — and save money.

“I mean who doesn’t want to save money, as the economy gets worse and worse, people are trying to lean on each other,” Hoang-Creton said.