The Brief

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Following the Lineage warehouse fire in Boyle Heights, many residents have expressed concerns about contaminants from smoke and ash settling into the soil. 

The Contaminant Level Evaluation and Analysis for Neighborhoods (CLEAN) project at USC is offering free soil testing for Boyle Heights and East L.A. residents. 

CLEAN is a rapid response soil testing program from the USC Department of Earth Sciences and Public Exchange developed by USC faculty, students and staff to assist local communities impacted by fires in L.A. County.

Residents can collect soil samples and drop them off at Boyle Heights City Hall for CLEAN to collect. 

Below is a step-by-step guide.

How to collect your sample: 

1. Review USC’s CLEAN project guide
2. Submit this survey– Your sample ID will be provided upon completing the survey. Make sure to save your ID as this is how the CLEAN team keeps track of your sample and provides results to you. 
3. Before getting started, gather your materials and protective equipment. (ADD points)
   
   1. Disposable gloves and an N95 or KN95 facemask
   2. Plastic spoon or shovel
   3. Ziploc bags (2 per composite samples)
   4. Permanent marker 
   5. Masking tape (for bag label)
   6. 9-digit sample ID code (from your survey)
4. Select your sampling zones
   
   1. Your sampling zones are where you will be collecting the soil from. Your zones can be your front or back yard, garden, etc. The picture on page four of the guide shows the different zones in a home and though your home may not have all zones, what’s important is that you understand what zones you’re collecting from and labeling them accordingly.
5. Once you’re wearing your protective gear and have your equipment, you are now ready to collect the sample.
   
   1. Collect two spoonfuls of soil for 2-5 different spots within a single zone
   2. Drop all spoonfuls from the zone into one Ziploc bag. By the end of collecting, the bag should have about a cup size of soil in it.
   3. Seal your Ziploc bag and for extra protection, put it over another Ziploc bag. This bag will now contain the zone’s composite sample. 
   4. Then repeat for every other zone you want to test. You should have one composite sample per zone you test. (e.g. one for the garden, one for the front yard, etc.)
6. Using a permanent marker, label each Ziploc bag with your unique sample ID and the zone name either on tape or directly on the bag. 
7. Then you repeat steps 5 and 6 for each zone you are testing. 

After collection 

Once you have finished collecting your samples, make sure to wash your hands. If you suspect your soil to be contaminated, CLEAN suggests limiting access to that area, wiping or taking shoes off before entering your home, and preventing children from playing in bare soil.  

CLEAN will test all samples for lead and some select samples will be tested for Arsenic, Chromium(VI), and Mercury. Testing for lead can take up to four weeks, while tests for other materials may take longer.

Where to submit your sample

After collecting and labeling your soil samples, you can submit them using one of the following methods:

Option 1: Drop Off Your Sample

Option 2: Mail Your Sample

Who to contact: 

If you have any questions or concerns, contact cleanproject@usc.edu

It always sucks when your favorite L.A. restaurant closes. Multiply that feeling tenfold if you happen to be vegan and already live as an outlier. While Los Angeles has long been seen as a hub for plant eaters, lately, not everyone has felt that way.

Donna Jean, an Italian-inspired vegan restaurant in Sherman Oaks, which shuttered at the end of 2025, was just one L.A. restaurant to close in recent years. Chef Roy Elam opened Donna Jean, which became a beloved community staple, in 2022, naming it in honor of his mother who died of breast cancer but switched to a vegan diet in her final months, in lieu of another round of chemo. The restaurant became known for preparing all its pizzas, pastas and sauces from scratch while using top-notch ingredients.

Donna Jean's cast iron mac and cheese, #1 crush pizza, kombucha on draft and lasagna.

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Courtesy Donna Jean

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“It really felt like a small-time kind of community restaurant in a lot of ways,” said Josh McClain, a former manager, going as far as calling it a “lifeline” for certain customers with niche allergies.

In spite of its dedicated fanbase, at the end of the day the restaurant just never was able to expand beyond them, said Elam, who still operates the original Donna Jean restaurant in San Diego.

“We could have a $10,000 day and that would be our whole entire week, and every other day would be, like, $0.”

Donna Jean's sitting vacant on Woodman Ave, after closing in December.

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Ezra Salkin

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LAist

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It’s a problem spread across the local landscape. Other notable vegan restaurants in the Valley to have closed over the last five years include Krimsey’s, Mamicon’s Vegan Mexican Restaurant, Sugar Taco and the Van Nuys location of Grain Cafe.

It got us thinking .... What do plant-based diners do when their favorite restaurants go away? Stay home and cook? Eat vegan dishes at omnivore restaurants? Give up the lifestyle altogether? We spoke to a handful of vegan Los Angeles diners to get a better grasp.

Veganism out of fashion?

McClain, a former manager at Donna Jean, became vegan during the last five years of Covid, initially due to supply-chain fears related to the availability of meat. He does believe there’s substance behind conversations about veganism going out of fashion. Post Donna Jean, rather than eating out, he and his girlfriend have been staying home, disconnecting — as much as possible — “from the structures of agriculture,” he said.

Josh McClain and his girlfriend have begun the practice of homesteading, making their own tofu, sourdough, soy and oat milk.

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Courtesy Josh McClain

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The couple have started the practice of homesteading, making their own tofu, sourdough, soy and oat milk, continually dialing in and refining their processes, as being vegan “can get pretty expensive,” he said.

 “Typically, most people that are vegan, they have the time to be able to do so," he added. "They have the money to be able to do so. They have the time to figure out dishes, test, and experiment."

He acknowledged that it’s only in recent history that vegans have been able to go out and enjoy restaurants like everyone else. To do it at home, he admits: “It’s a privileged position.”

Natural correction

Eric Eichelberger, a local filmmaker who’s been vegetarian across different cities since 1994, has the hindsight of remembering what it was like before the boom of the 2010s. What’s happening now is a natural correction, he said, and nothing to be overly concerned about.

“There was a fad of opening vegan restaurants. And so there became, just like anything, too many to really support the people who were vegan, vegetarian, whatever,” he said. “It’s now back to a reasonable amount.”

Eric Eichelberger believes if you have great food and a great price point, vegan restaurants can survive.

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Courtesy Eric Eichelberger

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That doesn’t mean Eichelberger hasn’t lost some of his go-tos. Real Food Daily comes to mind, but he stands by a simple truism: “If you have a great price point and you have great food, you're going to survive.”

He also added that places that have maintained a hippy, punk or political approach have done better, with some spots having been around for decades.

For example, he points to Studio City’s Leonors Organic (which opened in 1985), and Oh Happy Day Vegan Café and Grocery (in 1977), which sadly burnt down during the Altadena fires, though the owner is reportedly looking for a new location.

“It’s all these sort of vegan, Bacari-like kind of places that are closed now,” he said, referring to the hip — and pricey — Silver Lake omnivore restaurant. Veggie Grill is always a dependable option, he said. (One of their locations closed in the Valley, as well.)

Vegan heaven

Jacinda, who comes from Texas, is an optimist about L.A.'s vegan food scene.

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Courtesy Jacinda

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Jacinda, a customer care associate for a plant-based brand, has been a strict vegan for 16 years. (She declined to give her last name for personal safety reasons). Hailing from Lubbock, Texas, she’s one of the optimists. “L.A. is [still] vegan heaven,” she said.

As someone who likes to eat her way around town, “Every time I see one [restaurant] close, I see a new one open,” she said. “[To this day] I don’t know how somebody could go eat at every vegan restaurant here.” 

Still, every closure, like her local favorite Hijo De Su Madre, is “heartbreaking,” she added.

But what if all the restaurants did close? “It's just not an option to change either,” she said. “We will do whatever we have to do [to stay vegan]. If we have to eat beans and corn bread at home, then that's what we're going to do.”

Supper clubs baby!

Jef Travis, a hospitality professional, has been vegan since 1991, taking on the lifestyle initially as a form of rebellion against his father who insisted on taking him hunting as a kid. As prices continue to rise, Travis predicts some vegan restaurants will continue to exist, but they’ll be expensive, and will exist mainly for special occasions. 

As produce prices continue to surge, sometimes faster than meat, due to a mix of agricultural labor shortage and escalating oil and fertilizer prices, he said things won’t get any easier for restaurants.

“Hopefully those costs will begin to plateau,” he said, as we see more streamlined mechanized processes be implemented, and as we cross the threshold into the much-vaunted AI-driven fourth agricultural revolution. 

In the meantime, Travis urged other vegans to try and stay ahead.

“Don’t neglect the frozen food section” at your grocery store, where you can stock up on produce that’s flash frozen at the peak of ripeness. That, as well as finding gathering places, “Supper clubs, supper clubs, supper clubs, baby! Let's supper-away and do it together. Let’s go to the grocery store!”  

Leaving the lifestyle

If the restaurants continue to close, Eden Gordley, an actor who started her journey toward veganism six years ago to help with sinus issues, said she might be discouraged enough to leave the lifestyle herself.

“I would say that it's not easy to cook for yourself all the time," she said. "It's really hard. Anybody who is able to do that is, like, extremely privileged.”

 “I'd be discouraged to eat out {as well},” she added, noting that vegan dishes at omnivore restaurants aren’t really reliable options. This goes for national restaurants and fast food chains, too, not just mom and pops, who often use L.A. and similar big blue cities as test markets for specialized trends. Some dishes disappear overnight, she said, and others that find their way onto menus often aren’t given much thought or intention. “They just aren’t good.”

So, what’s next for vegan restaurants in L.A.? Donna Jean’s Elam said: “This is the one thing I noticed about L.A., is that when you're new, they care. When they can't have you anymore, they care. But the middle part — that’s the hard part.”

Civilian commissions that review the conduct of local law enforcement agencies have long been criticized for lacking teeth.

One way to remedy that is to give the civilian groups subpoena power so they can compel witnesses to testify or a department to provide documents.

Law enforcement agencies, including the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, have pushed back against that idea. But in 2020, L.A. County voters approved Measure R, which gave subpoena power to the Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission.

Six years later, the commission is still having trouble getting the department to comply.

“L.A. County voters said loud and clear in 2020 we wanted real oversight with subpoena power.. for real accountability of the largest Sheriff’s Department in the nation,” said Hans Johnson, chair of the Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission. “We still don’t have it."

A big part of the delay is state labor law that requires the county to meet and confer with the union that represents sheriff’s deputies about the impacts of any changes in the law, including subpoena power.

It's a process that has taken years.

Johnson and others accuse the union and county lawyers of dragging their feet. He said the commission is supposed to have independent and unfettered oversight of the Sheriff’s Department, which has a history of deputy misconduct.

The oversight commission has gone to court to challenge the meet-and-confer requirement.

Others cite additional factors that may be causing problems and slowing the process, including the number of agencies involved and the fact that the oversight committee doesn’t have authority to use lawyers that are independent from the county.

The Sheriff’s Department has said it cooperates with the oversight commission to the extent the law allows.

A beating leaves unanswered questions

The oversight panel wants access to several case files.

In 2024, an L.A. County sheriff’s deputy pleaded guilty in federal court in connection with beating a transgender man in Whittier a year earlier. The incident was caught on video, and the deputy admitted later that he retaliated against Emmett Brock, a 23-year-old high school teacher who was on his way home from work when he gave the deputy the middle finger.

Prosecutors said Deputy Joseph Benza III punched Brock repeatedly and bashed his head onto the pavement.

In a plea agreement, Benza admitted to one felony count of deprivation of rights under color of law. The FBI found a group of deputies had exchanged text messages with Benza discussing how to cover up his action, according to the Los Angeles Times. Eight deputies were relieved of duty as a result, the Times reported.

But after reviewing the incident, the process left the oversight commission with questions, according to Johnson.

Why did the initial internal review of the Feb. 10, 2023 incident find that Benza had committed no violations of department policy?

Why was a sergeant who had been involved in the incident allowed to head an internal investigation into what occurred?

And what steps has the Sheriff’s Department taken to ensure such a coverup doesn’t happen again?

In an effort to get those answers, the commission issued a subpoena to the department in February 2025 seeking use-of-force reports, body-worn camera and bystander footage as well as witness statements related to the incident. The Sheriff’s Department refused to comply, according to Johnson.

“It was another failure by the Sheriff Department to respect and comply with oversight,” Johnson said.

On the advice of county lawyers, the department cited state laws and rulings by the L.A. County Employee Relations Commission that require the county to meet and confer with labor unions that may be affected by the subpoenas before complying with them.

“California labor relations law, the County’s Employee Relations Commission (ERCOM), and recent court decisions legally obligate the County to meet-and-confer with its union partners,” county counsel said in a statement.

The executive director of the Association of Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs said the negotiations should be fairly simple: “How is the deputy going to be compensated? How are they going to be notified? Should they appear in their uniform? Should they appear in a suit?”

Other reasons for the delay

County counsel said lawyers for the county and union “have communicated extensively” and met seven times regarding Measure R.

Yet the statement didn’t say why the negotiations had not concluded six years after Measure R was passed.

One possible reason, according to Hsieh, is the number of parties involved in the negotiations, which includes the Sheriff’s Department, the county Board of Supervisors, the Civilian Oversight Commission, the county chief executive office and two labor unions.

“This is a multi-party process and because of that there are a lot of different interests,” he said.

Robert Bonner, a former federal judge and one-time chair of the oversight commission, argued the meet-and-confer requirement is a stalling tactic by the deputies union and shouldn’t apply to the issuance of subpoenas.

“These subpoenas are issued under state law. There is no meet and confer obligation whatsoever,” Bonner said. “The county counsel’s argument is weak.”

The meet-and-confer requirement under labor law can be an obstacle for effective oversight of law enforcement organizations, according to Cameron McEllhiney, executive director of the National Association for the Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement.

“Labor laws, officer bill of rights — all of those can become impediments to oversight,” McEllhiney said. “It's a challenge everywhere.”

County lawyers also represent both the Sheriff’s Department and the Civilian Oversight Commission in negotiations.

The current chair of the commission said that’s a conflict of interest.

“County counsel is not acting in the interests of pursuing oversight in Los Angeles County through the COC,” Johnson said.

Bonner agreed, saying the county counsel’s office can’t fairly represent the interests of both the Sheriff’s Department and the oversight commission.

“It's taking a position that is adverse and in conflict with the commission’s position with respect to enforcing its subpoenas,” Bonner said.

A Los Angeles Grand Jury came to a similar conclusion. In a report last month, the panel also found that county counsel’s representation of both the Sheriff’s Department and the Civilian Oversight Commission does constitute a conflict of interest..

“Recent trends in oversight now call into question whether they can equally and fully represent the ‘public interest,’” the report stated.

“County Counsel is conflicted in equally representing the BOS [Board of Supervisors], LASD and the Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission,” the report continued “Accordingly, we recommend: COC would have its own legal staff, i.e., no longer represented by County Counsel.”

In a statement to LAist, county counsel denied any conflict, and essentially said it's not a conflict because, technically, the commission is an extension of the Board of Supervisors.

The statement read: County counsel’s legal advice to the oversight panel does not create an attorney-client relationship “separate and distinct” from counsel’s relationship with the Board of Supervisors, “so it is not possible for a conflict of interest to exist when County labor issues are at issue.”

It continued: “In fact, the courts viewed the COC and Sheriff as all one County entity for the purposes of labor issues.”

What’s next?

The oversight commission, meantime, decided to go around county counsel in an attempt to enforce the Brock subpoena and two others — one involving the beating of Joseph Perez in July 2020 in East Valinda and one involving the fatal shooting of Andres Guardado in June of 2020 in West Rancho Dominguez.

Perez has filed a wrongful death lawsuit that is pending. The Guardado family won an $8 million dollar settlement with the county.

The commission hired Bonner on a pro bono basis to file a lawsuit against the Sheriff’s Department seeking enforcement. The suit was filed last month.

In January, a new state law took effect that said civilian law enforcement oversight panels were entitled to confidential personnel records.

The law has triggered new meet and confer negotiations between county lawyers, the Sheriff’s Department and the union representing deputies.

Southern Californians are in for a little relief this week after another muggy weekend.

The region is expected to experience a slight cooling trend over the course of the week, though forecasters say conditions will still be hotter than normal and continue to put people at risk of heat-related illness.

Highs in most of L.A. and Orange counties will be in the 80s and 90s through Friday. Some interior parts of L.A. County, much of the Inland Empire and the region’s deserts are expected to hit triple digits.

Don’t get too used to the — somewhat — milder temperatures either. Forecasters say the heat will soon return with a vengeance.

The high pressure system that’s been driving much of this summer’s weather has retreated eastward, forecasters say, allowing for the cooling trend. But the system is expected to migrate back toward Southern California this week and bring the heat with it.

Temperatures will tick up steadily from Friday to Sunday, when parts of the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys are expected to reach 100 degrees or higher.

Dangerous beach conditions

Meanwhile, forecasters continue to warn of dangerous currents and surf at the beach.

For the last several weeks, Southern California’s beaches have been pummeled by strong rip currents, big waves and surging tides.

Officials are particularly concerned about the hazardous conditions as people flock to the beach to escape the heat

Lifeguards performed nearly 2,000 rescues over the weekend in L.A. County alone, according to the county Fire Department’s lifeguard division.

And the upcoming weekend is expected to present similar hazards for beachgoers. South-facing stretches of coastline will experience the most severe currents and waves.

Officials recommend checking surf conditions before heading to the beach and, if you do go in the water, stay near lifeguards and listen to their instructions. It’s also a good idea to stay off of tidal rocks and jetties.

If you end up caught in a rip current while swimming, relax, stay calm and float as much as possible to conserve energy. To escape the current, swim parallel to the beach, then at an angle toward the beach. Do not try to swim against the current. If you can’t reach the shore, call and wave for help.

The surf conditions are being driven by a series of tropical storms churning hundreds of miles to the southeast in the Pacific Ocean.

One of them, Hurricane Fausto, has been pushing its storm surge towards Southern California since it formed off Central America on July 16. Since then it has moved toward Hawaii, becoming a Category 2 hurricane over the weekend. It is now weakening.

This week, another storm, Hurricane Genevieve, is running parallel to the Mexican coast about 500 miles off the tip of Baja California. Genevieve was briefly classified as a Category 5 hurricane on Monday.

The storms, along with swells originating from storms in the Southern Hemisphere, have combined to create dangerous surf here.

“It's been definitely a long period of very frequent and hazardous rip currents,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Bryan Lewis.

There is also a chance the surge could cause minor coastal flooding.