The Brief

Back in college, I worked in a bar restaurant in Whittier called the 6740. It specializes in craft and imported beers. Craft beer opened my eyes to a spectrum of different ingredients and flavors.

Like many people my age (Hello, my fellow elder millennials), microbrewery tasting rooms and craft beer bars served as our "third place" for hanging out with one another as young adults. When I moved to Northeast Los Angeles, I regularly frequented craft beer establishments such as The Hermosillo at their original location on York Boulevard in Highland Park, Eagle Rock Brewery, and Golden Road Brewing’s first location in Atwater Village, off San Fernando Road, across the street from the train tracks.

Craft beer love 

My wife and I moved away from our beloved Northeast Los Angeles neighborhood of Highland Park after getting married in 2015 (we'd served two kegs of Highland Park Brewing at our wedding). In late 2017, we discovered we were pregnant with our daughter and decided to move to Long Beach to be closer to family and take advantage of the smaller school system and lower cost of living.

Luisa Beatrix Chabrán was born on June 13, 2018, and we were immediately smitten with her striking blue eyes and infectious smile.

In early 2020, the pandemic hit, and around that time, right before her second birthday, we noticed that Luisa was showing signs of a speech delay. Our pediatrician recommended that we get her screened for autism. The specialist confirmed that Luisa met the criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorder. We learned that 25-35% of children who are diagnosed with autism are non-speaking or minimally verbal.

At that point, the world took on a whole new level of emotional weight during this period for our family — the processing what an autism diagnosis meant and trying to make sense of what the future might look like.

I often longed for those carefree days back in Highland Park, where friends and I would just hang out.

But those days were gone. It was the height of the pandemic. Everything had shut down. Reality itself took on a different form. Our days were now filled with various doctor appointments, Zoom assessments, and in-home therapies. I was different, too.

Since this new reality has set in, I’ve made many strides towards acceptance.

Luisa is now 5 ½ years old, continues to have limited speech, and attends a Special Education class at a local public school in Long Beach. One of the highlights of my day is when she curls up in my lap and asks to listen to the Peppa Pig stories on Spotify for the 900th time that I know all the words to by now. I always find myself singing along.

So, when I received an email about a new Hazy IPA called Get On Board, it caught my eye for two reasons.

One, it was a new release from Golden Road Brewery, one of my old stomping grounds.

Two, the beer was made by and in support of adults with non-speaking autism, individuals who are not all that different from my daughter.

Nonspeaking autism 

I reached out to Meg Gill, the CEO and co-founder of Golden Road Brewery and learned that her daughter, too, has autism. We shared similar stories about raising our girls during the pandemic and grappling with the notion of what the future might hold.

“I was so scared and hopeless in those early days, thinking maybe she couldn't ever communicate,” Gill told me of her daughter.

CEO and Founder Meg Gill (center) with the Spellers team who helped make Get On Board Hazy IPA.

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Courtesy of Golden Road Brewing

)

Gill’s search for a solution had led her to the book Underestimated: An Autism Miracle by father and son J.B. and Jamie Handley. The book explores how Jamie, who was diagnosed with autism, learned to communicate when he was 17 years old using the Spellers Method for individuals using a hand-held letter board, pointing to letters and spelling words to communicate.

H-O-P-E

After reading the Handleys' book, Gill immediately felt inspired: "I was on a mission." She eventually connected with Dawnmarie Gaivin, who runs Spellers Center in Oceanside, a resource for parents and children using the method.

That’s when Gil and her team at Golden Road set out to build a work program for about a dozen autistic adults, focused on beer making and marketing. Both sides learned valuable communication and work skills from each other during the process.

The letter board used by the Spellers who helped with making Get On Board Hazy IPA with Golden Road.

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Courtesy of Golden Road Brewing

)

The result: Get On Board, the name chosen as a reference to the letter board, which is also seen on the label.

The beer is a Hazy IPA brewed with citrus, featuring orange, peach, and eureka lemon. The beer is 6.5%, so for the casual beer drinker, one might do you. The beer contains equal notes of sweetness from the citrus to a hint of bitterness at the end, resembling an orange natural wine, providing a medium-bodied finish and easy drinkability that is perfect for the upcoming warmer weather.

Documenting the process

The entire process of making Get On Board was documented for an online docuseries titled Underestimated: the Heroic Rise of Nonspeaking Spellers and will be available on Underestimated.tv. (The series begins streaming May 26. Golden Road and the Get On Board Hazy IPA are featured in Episode 3.)

Creating change one letter at a time

For Gill, Get On Board underscores the message of inclusion for everyone, including nonspeaking individuals. She says the experience has empowered her to think about other ways to match these individuals for jobs that suit their abilities and serve their communities.

"I love learning more about the adult space, how we can help those with superpowers get to the right jobs, and how CEOs of businesses are looking at diversity and inclusion because I know I thought it was a different thing than what I think it is now," says Gill.

Gill’s story and words struck a particular chord with me.

I, too, have sleepless nights worrying about Luisa's future and whether or not she’ll ever be able to communicate effectively and advocate for herself.

Same when it comes to designing fair and equitable spaces for autistic individuals. Many businesses pay a lot of lip service to words like "diversity." As someone who spends a lot of time in restaurants, I’m constantly thinking about how a space is conducive for Luisa, from the food offered to the noise level to how the tables are situated. Are we creating diverse and inclusive spaces for them?

LAist food editor Gab Chabrán, introducing his daughter Luisa, to Skee Ball.

(

Katie Chabrán

)

I was reminded of a sign that used to hang above one of the main entrances of Golden Road in Atwater Village, which I always found to be an incredibly welcoming place.

It was a quote from author George Orwell, describing his ideal pub setting and lamenting that children were not allowed in: "... excluding children — and therefore, to some extent, women — from pubs… have turned these places into mere boozing-shops instead of the family gathering-places that they ought to be."

That quote has stuck with me all these years. Drinking establishments should keep everyone in mind, especially families.

Gill’s mission for creating Get On Board is an excellent starting point for how we can better support autistic individuals in leading well-rounded and fruitful lives.

After all, there’s nothing more joyous than people getting together to support one another while enjoying good food and drink.

A criminal justice watchdog is calling into question whether Latinos in the L.A. County Superior Court get a fair shot at bail.

The new report from the nonprofit La Defensa, which advocates for reform in the legal system, analyzes a sample of pretrial decisions from 2025 which had been documented by community court-watching volunteers.

One of the key findings was that defendants who were perceived to be Latino had an average bail amount of $157,700 — more than 15 times higher than white defendants and nearly three times higher than Black defendants.

Studies show that inability to pay bail can affect defendants’ livelihoods and their ability to defend themselves, according to the Vera Institute of Justice.

“ Most families — no matter what they did, no matter what they sold — cannot actually purchase that person’s freedom to give them the fighting chance to go against the state,” Titilayọ Rasaki, La Defensa’s state policy and legal affairs director.

The L.A. County Superior Court says it’s following the law on bail requirements and that the findings are missing context because observation is limited.

How court-watching works

La Defensa’s Court Watch LA program is a community-led effort to document and hold the courts accountable. They train volunteers to go in and observe cases.

The volunteers take notes on the charges, the judge’s conduct and the person’s criminal history, if it comes up. That then gets analyzed against publicly available case information and state law. Programs like this exist in several other cities around the country.

For the latest report, La Defensa volunteers observed 140 felony and misdemeanor criminal cases, chosen at random, between January to November 2025.

Judicial accountability lead Bryanna Siguenza explained how she decided where to send the volunteers.

“ I choose a department, specifically ones that are pretty busy, have high case loads, and are arraignment and pretrial,” she said.

What watchers saw

Racial disparities in pretrial settings have been researched at local, state and national levels, but La Defensa’s findings are based entirely on human observation, Siguenza said.

The volunteers are trained to listen for important details that come up in proceedings, but they may not always get the full story behind the charges, like a defendant’s criminal history.

L.A. County Superior Court spokesperson Rob Oftring said the report needs more context.

“Many of the report’s findings, for example, do not appear to account for charge severity or criminal history, both of which are legally significant factors in any release decision…” he wrote in a statement.

La Defensa did not include in its report what charges had been filed in the cases observed. However, according to the report, comparable charges still had disproportionate bail outcomes that “couldn’t be explained by charge severity alone.”

The severity of charges legally informs bail decisions. The Superior Court is required to have standard bail amounts based on the crime, which judges have discretion to adjust.

State law also requires judges to weigh issues like public safety in bail decisions, as well as the defendant’s ability to post bail. According to the volunteers’ observations, the judges considered the latter in just a quarter of cases when setting bail.

Oftring said the court has taken steps to reduce money bail’s usage as allowed by law.

“Bail at arraignment is set only after both the defense and prosecution have been heard and the judge has weighed the specific facts of the case,” his statement read.

The limits of the findings

Oftring said the court values the role organizations like Court Watch LA play in keeping the justice system accountable, but that the sample size of the researchers used in their report is too small to draw any definitive conclusions.

Roughly 272,000 criminal cases took place during that time period, according to Oftring.

Representatives from La Defensa said they know the report is only a snapshot of the system, and that human observation has its limits.

That’s why in November, they requested 10 years of de-identified data to analyze whether bail outcomes differ across judges, courthouses and demographic groups. Rasaki said they haven’t received it.

“  We would say release the data … by all means, we want to partner. We want to analyze,” she said.

Oftring told LAist they are working on several projects that “provide data-informed scrutiny of how the court operates.”

Southern Californians are in for yet another scorching weekend.

The National Weather Service has issued a heat advisory for much of the region through Monday, with temperatures expected to hit their peak on Sunday.

Highs in the San Fernando Valley, San Gabriel Valley and other inland areas of L.A. County are expected to range from the mid-90s to about 105 degrees. Downtown Los Angeles and much of Orange, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties will get up to the lower 90s. Beaches will also be hot — in the lower 80s.

Moving farther east, things get really toasty. Forecasters have issued a more severe extreme heat warning for parts of the Inland Empire, where temperatures could get up to 108 degrees, and for the Coachella Valley, where they could hit 120.

Humidity will likely also continue to add to the discomfort, but will be concentrated in areas closer to the coast, where it will keep nighttime temperatures relatively warm and make it more difficult to cool down. Inland areas will feel drier.

Those who are most at-risk from the heat are people who work or spend time outside, people without access to air conditioning and those who are either over 65 or young children.

Forecasters are also warning of dangerous rip currents and swells along the coast this weekend.

If you’re headed to the beach to beat the heat, as many Southern Californians likely are, they recommend staying out of the water or, if you do go swimming, stay in front of lifeguards. It’s also a good idea to avoid jetties and tidal rocks.

Wildfire risk

This weekend will also come with a high risk of wildfires.

Forecasters warn that fire danger will be elevated through at least Monday, driven by heat, dry vegetation and low humidity levels away from the coast.

Despite some extra moisture in the air over the last several weeks, there hasn’t been enough to actually produce rain. Without precipitation, and under consistently high temperatures, plants will continue to dry out and become fuel.

“We have humidity, but it's not reaching the saturation point. Therefore, we won't have a cloud. We won't have precipitation,” said Rong Fu, an atmospheric scientist at UCLA who specializes in weather patterns and wildfires.

Fu said a system of high atmospheric pressure sitting over the Western U.S. is pushing warm, dry air across the Sierra Nevada from inland deserts and into Southern California.

That can generate what’s known as downslope wind. Those winds plus the already dry conditions align to create some especially dangerous fire weather.

One spark can easily turn into a large blaze, and humans are the most common cause of wildfires in Southern California, according to the U.S. Forest Service.

People can accidentally start wildfires in a range of ways, including throwing a lit cigarette into dry brush or dragging a chain behind a vehicle, creating sparks. One of the most common human causes is improperly extinguished camp fires.

Lightning can also start wildfires but is unlikely under current weather conditions. Southern California has seen minimal thunderstorms this summer.

The new normal?

Heatwaves in the summer and fall are obviously not new for Southern California, but they are getting worse.

Much of the heat currently blanketing the region is being driven by the high-pressure system, which traps warm air and compresses it against the ground, heating it even further. Forecasters say it’s likely to stay that way through the end of July.

But high-pressure systems like this one usually don’t stick around this long.

“For this pattern to linger almost two weeks — yeah, I would say, from a climatological point of view — that's pretty unusual,” Fu said.

One major driver of the change, Fu said, is climate change: As the climate warms, this kind of “anomalous” high pressure system will become stronger and more frequent.

And one consequence of hotter and longer heatwaves, is extended elevated periods of risky fire weather.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Los Angeles will be under a heat wave advisory until Monday evening as temperatures show no signs of letting up over the weekend.

Temperatures will linger in the high 80s and low 90s in downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods, including Koreatown, Pico Union and Westlake.

The National Weather Service projects temperatures will peak on Sunday afternoon. Meteorologist Bryan Lewis with the National Weather Service said residents can expect more humidity than usual. 

While dense, urban centers have more concrete and see more vehicle traffic, downtown and the surrounding areas will not be the hottest locations during this heatwave in the Southland, as the Antelope Valley will be under an extreme heat advisory over the weekend.

During hot weather, the beach is an immediate go-to for folks that want to stay cool, but Lewis warns against this as the surf will be extra choppy.

The Pacific Coast will see large swells “coming up from tropical systems off the coast of Mexico,” Lewis said. “We are issuing a beach hazard statement that’ll be in effect through at least the weekend [which] may be extended.” 

While the weather is expected to cool down on Monday, forecasts show that another heatwave could develop by the end of next week.

Pools nearby

Find a pool or splash pad nearest you.

Echo Park Pool

Eleanor Green Roberts Aquatic Center

Cooling centers

Find the nearest cooling center.

Pico Union Branch Library

Felipe de Neve Branch Library (Westlake)

Pio Pico – Koreatown Branch Library

Councilmember Heather Hutt’s office recommends residents to rest in shade or a building with air conditioning and to stay hydrated with plenty of water.

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