The Brief

Continuing our exclusive investigation into a rendering plants in Vernon facility and years of putrid odor complaints, today we are taking a look at the city’s troubled history.

In Vernon, severe environmental issues persist

Vernon — located about five miles southeast of downtown L.A.,— is self-described as an “exclusively industrial” city. It’s also a city known for a series of high-profile corruption prosecutions that involved outsized pay and benefits for city officials and lawmakers. Twelve years ago those scandals almost led to the dismantling of the city, which even today has just over 200 residents. Now, Vernon is trying to grow its residential areas despite ongoing environmental issues.

Reporter Ted Rohrlich takes a deeper look at the changes in the city, which include its new expansion plan, and the troubles that led to those initiatives. Read the full story here.

Read the series:

• The investigation: Inside The Fight Over A Facility That Recycles Dead Animals In Southeast LA 
• How and why we reported this: The 2 Bus Rides That Spurred LAist’s Deep Dive Into Odor Issues In Vernon
• Compliance issues: LAist review finds companies violated sign rules

Resources: Smell Something Bad In Your Neighborhood? Here’s Where To Get Help

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• Pasadena is one of the few California cities that still gets a lot of its energy from coal — the dirtiest energy source. On Tuesday, a city committee is set to vote on a plan to provide a pathway to transition off the stuff.
• About 200 bus drivers, customer service reps and dispatchers in Santa Clarita went on strike Monday. They’re demanding higher wages and a better contract. The strike has suspended all Santa Clarita Transit commuter services and most local routes, including the school tripper service for students in the Hart Union School District.
• More strikes: About 1,800 nurses and frontline healthcare workers across four Southern California Prime Healthcare facilities have launched a five-day strike to fix what they say are unsafe working and patient care conditions caused by short-staffing affecting the healthcare industry.
• SAG-AFTRA negotiators say they’re resuming talks with studios and streamers Monday after last week’s meeting. Picketing continues after nearly three months, as performers fight for protections around artificial intelligence and the use of their digital copies, residuals increases and other demands.
• Communities big and small are trying to rein in climate change. But many people working on these climate solutions are running into a big obstacle: falsehoods and conspiracy theories about their work. So what does this mean for fighting global warming?

Wait... one more thing

 Welcome To The World of Dumplings!

Dumplings!

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It might be the change in weather and consistently writing about food on Fridays, but I’ve been thinking about dumplings lately. And as I was searching last weekend for good dumpling restaurants, I stumbled upon our very own round up and immediately bookmarked.

One of the places featured in the story is an Americana At Brand Memes favorite: Tawainese chain restaurant Din Tai Fung. While I’ve already tried Din Tai Fung, I’m excited to try the rest on this list! See the full list here.

Psst, if you want more food deals and things to do, here’s a list of the weekly events happening in SoCal.

Production of Tesla's Cybertruck, a stainless-steel electric vehicle with a polarizing allure for potential buyers, will wind down next year.

In a post on social media, CEO Elon Musk said, “Tesla will be winding down production of the Cybertruck at Gigafactory Texas around the middle of next year to make room for increased Cybercab production.”

The Texas facility is the only location where the Cybertruck is produced.

Teslas, and the Cybertruck in particular because of its unorthodox profile, became a political touchstone as Musk allied himself with President Donald Trump and some right-leaning causes amid a widening political divide in the U.S. and Europe.

European sales of Tesla vehicles tumbled 49% in the first two months of 2025 even as overall sales of EVs grew. Musk’s endorsement of Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany party in national elections drew broad condemnation.

The vehicle was also plagued by quality-control issues, with a handful of recalls within months of its debut.

Despite enormous anticipation, the Cybertruck never caught on with most buyers, and sales declined almost from the moment it hit the market.

While Tesla does not break out sales of its vehicles by model, Kelley Blue Book estimated that Cybertruck sales declined 48% from 2024 to 2025. From January through September of this year, sales were down 28%, according to Kelley Blue Book.

An artist live-work colony in Lincoln Heights is opening its 17-acre campus this weekend, where a beer named Eastside was once brewed.

More than 100 artists are participating in the Brewery Artwalk, an event that started in 1983, according to Kristen Carlson. She is president and CEO of Carlson Industries, which operates the Brewery.

“It was an idea with the artists that were there at that time to have open studios,” Carlson said.

The Brewery.

The Brewery is inviting the public to its twice-yearly Artwalk this weekend.

Silver Cariaso, Eastside Brewery employee

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Shades of L.A. Photo Collection

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Los Angeles Public Library

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In 1979, New York transplants Arnold "Whitey" Carlson and his sons Steven and Richard bought the shuttered plant. The eldest Carlson had built the Island Garden — a one-time home of the New York Nets.

An old photo of one of the buildings at the Brewery.

The Brewery site with the Edison smokestack behind it.

“My grandfather and my father and my uncle basically came to California in the '70s trying to find property to purchase and develop,” Kristen Carlson, Steven’s daughter, said. “That's where they ended up.”

The family started selling off the plant’s contents piece by piece — “bricks and kegs and tanks and whatever,” Carlson said. Their earliest tenants, she added, included the repair academy American Institute of Piano Technology and a stainless-steel fabricator for restaurant equipment.

Edison Electric built its steam-powered plant behind the Brewery complex in the early 1900s.

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The 1982 law changed everything.

“They developed one unit as an artist loft and put an ad in the L.A. Times,” Carlson said. “They had a line down the street. The phone rang off the hook until my mom literally took it off the line. And they were like, ‘OK, I guess this is what we do now.’”

Today, 23 buildings make up the Brewery, with studios, galleries, a restaurant and 300 live-work lofts.

Its oldest building is the steam power plant with its iconic smokestack, designed by John Parkinson and built in the early 1900s by Edison Electric.

Inside, it’s now a state-of-the-art climbing gym.

The Brewery Artwalk is a financial supporter of LAist. Like other funders, it has no influence on our coverage.

This story first appeared on Long Beach Post.

For Luis Mendiola, the kitchen is his happy place. It has been since he was a kid. The kitchen is warm and comfortable. The kitchen feeds him and keeps him safe.

“It’s like being in the womb. You are always protected,” Mendiola said in Spanish. And while Mendiola loves cooking in the kitchen, his wife, Veronica Lopez, enjoys serving customers.

Together, they’re running their dream restaurant in West Long Beach, Black Pork. Lopez describes Black Pork as “a multicultural, California-style” restaurant.

Before meeting in California and settling in Long Beach together, Mendiola and Lopez learned to cook in various professional kitchens from Mexico to London, Louisiana to Oregon. Drawing from their experiences around the world, they put together a menu of comfort foods: empanadas, mac and cheese balls, clam chowder, Cubano sandwiches, hamburgers, barbecue ribs, porchetta, Korean barbecue and more.

“We want to give people something different with our style,” Lopez said.

Veronica Lopez and Chef Luis Mendiola own and operate Black Pork restaurant in West Long Beach.

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Thomas R. Cordova

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The menu is a culmination of customer feedback over the last three years and what the couple just wants to make. Clam chowder holds a special place in Mendiola’s heart because it was one of the first soups he learned how to make, so when customers asked for a soup, it was easy to decide which one. The clam chowder was only supposed to be on the menu for a couple of months, but customers loved it so much they kept it as a regular menu item. The soup, like almost all of their food, is made from scratch and has a hint of spice from the splash of Tabasco and white pepper that Mendiola adds.

With a name like Black Pork, their pork dishes, of course, take center stage.

“The pork belly skewers are decadent; crispy but tender, the smoky flavor is perfect. Chef Luis makes some mouth-watering Cubano pulled pork, too,” Kate Maule, a long-time customer, said. “I honestly won’t order a Cubano sandwich anywhere else because it will never be made with the care Chef Luis takes.”

Inside Black Pork, a three-foot-tall black pig wearing a scarf and glasses greets customers as they walk through the door. A smaller pig wearing a bow tie stands on the counter next to the register. Illustrations of pigs line the left wall and figurines of pigs with wings sit on a shelf above the tables. Mendiola and Lopez’s nod to John Steinbeck’s Pigasus — a symbol of aspiration.

The pig motif and the restaurant’s name are a reflection of Mendiola’s passion for cooking with pork.

“[Mendiola] loves to cook with the pork because he says that you can work with everything: the head, the tongue, the feet, everything. You can do whatever you want,” Lopez said.

Cuban pork sandwich at Black Pork restaurant in West Long Beach.

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Long Beach Post

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In the three years they’ve been open, Lopez said Black Pork has gained a loyal following from customers in Long Beach and surrounding cities.

“I don’t know why people come here, but I love that they do it,” Lopez said.

Maule said it is the food and the warm hospitality of Lopez and Mendiola that make Black Pork one of her favorite restaurants and keeps her coming back at least once a month since they opened in 2023.

“You don’t just go for a good meal. You visit friends, too,” Maule said. “Chef Luis and Veronica aren’t just chefs; they’re the best kind of people.”

Guava and spices (left) and peach ginger iced tea at Black Pork restaurant in West Long Beach.

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She appreciates how much care they put into every dish.

“You can tell Chef Luis put himself into all of his smoked meats; you can tell Chef Veronica puts her last touches on everything before that plate gets put in front of you. I rarely get that feeling anywhere else,” Maule said.

Christine Cabrera’s customers at PBS Pub in Wrigley, kept raving about the empanadas at Black Pork. When Cabrera and her husband, who help run the pub, finally went to Black Pork a few months after the restaurant opened, they planned on ordering their food to-go. But they dined-in after meeting Lopez and Mendiola.

“We hit it off with [Mendiola and Lopez], ordered appetizers, and left with full bellies and hearts,” Cabrera said. Now, Cabrera and her husband are one of the many frequent customers at Black Pork and sell their empanadas at their pub.

“We are a community of small businesses. Our neighbors aren’t just people who live here, but also people who believed in the neighborhood enough to invest here, which makes it even more important that we lean into helping other small businesses that have that same dedication,” Cabrera said.

Black Pork’s owners said they work 12 hours a day, six days a week and run the restaurant by themselves because, “it’s something that we do with all the love in the world,” Lopez said.

Black Pork, 1916 W Willow St., is open Mondays from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Tuesdays through Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.

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.