The Brief

Now that the Arby’s in Hollywood has closed after 55 years of serving roast beef sandwiches on Sunset Boulevard, some people are on a mission to save the towering neon 10-gallon hat sign from being scrapped.

Corrie Siegel, executive director of the Museum of Neon Art in Glendale, told LAist the sign struck a lot of chords with people, partly because it’s such an iconic marker of the area and a symbol of the changing face of Hollywood.

“I found out about the business closing around the time the rest of the public found out … and jumped into finding ways of connecting to the family, connecting to the property owner and city council, and speaking to local preservationists to figure out what could be done,” Siegel said.

How we got here

The Arby’s, near the intersection of Tamarind Avenue and Sunset Boulevard, had been run by the Leviton family since 1969.

Judy Sibelman, one of the four children of Mike and Marilyn Leviton, told LAist they left everyone they knew in Illinois to move to California and build the restaurant from the ground up.

“My father liked to say the business had to have three important things — location, location, location,” she said.

And with a once-clear view of the Hollywood sign and nearby studios packed full of potential customers, the Arby’s certainly had its site on its side.

But Sibelman said financial troubles started around 2019, when the restaurant was celebrating its 50th anniversary.

The landlord they’d worked with for decades died, and the family was given the right of first refusal to buy the property outright, but she said “none of us happened to have a spare $5 million lying around.”

The new landlord came with a more difficult relationship, and the family was able to renegotiate another lease, but only for five years. The landlord didn’t immediately respond to LAist’s request for comment.

With that lease expiring at the end of June, combined with a decline in business during the COVID pandemic and the Hollywood strikes, it became increasingly clear their days of beef and cheddar were coming to a close.

Three out of four of the Leviton children, including Ruth, Bob, and Judy, from left to right. The photo on the left was taken on Arby's opening day, when the trio were between 9 and 13 years old. The photo on the right is a re-creation from the restaurant's 50th anniversary party.

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Photo courtesy of Judy Sibelman

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Sibelman said the lease was the “number one reason that we had to go out of business,” not California’s minimum-wage increase for fast food workers.

“We don't consider ourselves victims of that at all,” she said.

Sibelman started thinking about what would happen to the neon sign and reached out to several organizations, including the Valley Relics Museum in Van Nuys and the American Sign Museum in Ohio, until she connected with a “very empathetic” Siegel and the Museum of Neon Art on Brand Boulevard.

What’s in store for the sign

For Siegel, the huge 10-gallon hat is more than just a sign. She said it's about community, a family, and the end of an era — because signs don’t exist without people.

“Neon signs are important because of the people they're connected to,” she said. “And I think it's really important in any preservation context, or any civic context, to recognize that the meaning that's coming from these signs is directly related to the importance of the narratives — the family narratives, the stories of the people that worked in the businesses, and the stories of the communities that grew up around the sign.”

A photo from the early days of the Hollywood Arby's.

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Courtesy Judy Sibelman

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But moving the towering display would be a logistical feat in and of itself, a scenario Siegel said she’s had nightmares about. And since the family didn’t own the property, the push for preservation has been further complicated by a city ordinance that considers the setup an asset to the landlord, Sibelman said.

However, Siegel noted that actually might be even better, as it’s always within the museum’s best interests to keep the neon signage in the context of which it was created to convey history and act as an aesthetic beacon.

Some are now lobbying for the sign to be saved as-is on Sunset Boulevard with Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez’s office, whose 13th district includes Hollywood.

In a letter to Soto-Martínez reviewed by LAist, Sibelman urged the city to designate the sign as a landmark cultural resource in honor of the community of which it has so long been a part.

“We know the hat is a beloved feature, and our office is committed to supporting the local business owners and stakeholders so the Arby’s hat can remain on Sunset Blvd,” a spokesperson for Council District 13 said in a statement to LAist.

Siegel said the Arby’s sign saga may bring up a lot of feelings of loss, but she’s encouraging people to continue to support the businesses that they see as integral to their Los Angeles experience.

“Take a break and go in and meet the people behind the signs, because that's really what I think people miss when this happens,” she said. “They miss the community that they didn't realize was quietly there all along.”

The Supreme Court today is hearing a billion-dollar case about whether internet providers can be liable for their users' committing copyright violations using their services.

The legal battle pits the music entertainment industry against Cox Communications, which provides internet to over 6 million residences and business.

A coalition of music labels, which represent artists such as Sabrina Carpenter, Givēon and Doechii, sued Cox alleging that company should be responsible for the copyright violations of internet users that Cox had been warned were serial copyright abusers.

The coalition argues Cox was sent numerous notices of specific IP addresses repeatedly violating music copyrights and that Cox's failure to terminate those IP addresses from internet access means that Cox should face the music.

In its briefs, the coalition argued many of Cox's anti-infringement measurements seem superficial and the company willingly overlooked violations.

The coalition points out that Cox had a 13-strike policy for potentially terminating infringing customers, under which Cox acted against a customer based on how many complaints it received about a particular user. The Cox manager who oversaw the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the law at issue in this case, told his team to "F the dmca!!!"

"Cox made a deliberate and egregious decision to elevate its own profits over compliance with the law," the coalition asserts.

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and a jury agreed with the coalition, with the jury awarding the coalition more than a billion dollars in damages.

Cox argues it should not be liable for its customers' actions as it never encouraged the copyright infringements, its terms of service prohibit illegal activities, and it does not make additional money when customers use its internet to infringe on copyrights.

In its briefs, Cox specified that less than 1% of its users infringe on music copyrights and that its internal compliance measures "got 95% of that less than 1% to stop." It asserts that if the Supreme Court does not side with them, then "that means terminating entire households, coffee shops, hospitals, universities and even regional internet service providers (ISPs) — the internet lifeline for tens of thousands of homes and businesses — merely because some unidentified person was previously alleged to have used the connection to infringe."

A decision in the case is expected this summer.

Copyright 2025 NPR

The push to ban gas-powered leaf blowers has gained an unlikely figurehead: Cate Blanchett, the Australian actress.

“Leaf blowers need to be eradicated from the face of the Earth,” she said in an interview in March. Her complaints have gone viral on TikTok and other social media platforms. “It’s a metaphor for what’s wrong with us as a species,” Blanchett said. “We blow shit from one side of our lawn to the other side, and then the wind is just going to blow it back!”

Her complaints about leaf blowers — equal parts entertaining and earnest — stretch back nearly 20 years, and now the mood has caught up with her. Today, more than 200 local governments in the U.S. have restricted gas-powered lawn equipment or provided incentives to switch to quieter, less-polluting electric tools. The first bans date back to the 1970s, but the trend picked up after the pandemic lockdowns in 2020, when newly homebound workers discovered just how inescapable the whine of their neighbor’s leaf blower can be.

“With every year that passes, more and more communities across the country are taking action to address the shocking amount of pollution and noise from gas lawn equipment,” said Kirsten Schatz, clean air advocate at the Colorado Public Interest Research Group, called CoPIRG.

Gas-powered leaf blowers aren’t just annoying; they’re bad for public health. Closing the windows can’t shut out their low-frequency roar, which can be louder than the World Health Organization’s recommended limit of 55 decibels up to 800 feet away. The unwanted sound can lead to high levels of stress, along with disturbing people’s sleep and potentially damaging hearing over time.

Leaf blowers’ two-stroke engines also churn out a noxious blend of exhaust: fine particulate matter, smog-forming gases, and cancer-causing chemicals like benzene and formaldehyde. By one estimate, running a gas-powered leaf blower for an hour emits as much smog-forming pollution as driving a car from Los Angeles to Denver.

And while lawn and garden equipment is only a small slice of global carbon emissions, leaf blowers and other gas-powered tools “pack a big punch for the amount that they create based on the size of their engines,” said Dan Mabe, the founder of the American Green Zone Alliance, a group that works with cities and landscapers to shift to electric equipment. In 2020, fossil-fueled lawn and garden equipment in the U.S. released more than 30 million tons of CO2, more than the emissions of the city of L.A.

Cities and states across the country have taken different approaches to dealing with the problem. California’s law banning the sale of new gas-powered blowers took effect last January, while cities like Portland and Baltimore are phasing out their use. Some places, like Wilmette, Illinois, have enacted seasonal limits, either permanently or until a full ban takes effect. Others, like Colorado, attempt to sweeten the deal of buying electric lawn care equipment, offering a 30 percent discount.

But implementing the bans is proving more challenging than many expected. Many communities are frustrated that the new rules are not being properly enforced, said Jamie Banks, the founder and president of Quiet Communities, a nonprofit working to reduce noise pollution.

Westport, Connecticut, fought for years to get a seasonal restriction on gas-powered blowers, only to find that local officials were not enforcing it, Banks said. Noise complaints are not exactly at the top of police officers’ priority lists, and sometimes ordinances are written in a way that’s hard to carry out — police aren’t usually expected to go around town taking noise readings, for example. Some communities are taking a deliberate approach to the problem: Banks pointed to a group of towns in the greater Chicago area, including Wilmette, that are trying to create consistent policies across the region and working with the local police.

Then there’s the matter that swapping gas blowers for ones powered by electricity isn’t as straightforward as it sounds. While the costs are comparable for homeowners — you can get electric blowers at a big-box store like Home Depot for around $200 or less, cheaper than most gas ones — electric blowers are more expensive for commercial landscapers. They require multiple batteries for workers to get through the day. While a typical professional gas-powered blower runs for $550, a comparable electric one costs $700 and requires thousands of dollars worth of batteries. Landscapers also have to buy hundreds of dollars worth of charging equipment and find ways to charge safely on the go.

Plus, it can be difficult to meet the standards customers expect with electric leaf blowers, which are less powerful than gas ones. “If you have customers that are demanding that you get everything off the ground, and you better do it quickly, and you’d better not charge me too much money, it’s really tough,” Banks said.

Bans have already generated a political backlash in some Republican-led states. Texas and Georgia have passed laws prohibiting local governments from regulating gas-powered leaf blowers. The Western States Petroleum Association, an oil industry group, launched a Latino-focused messaging campaign in California that pushes back against laws to electrify vehicles and leaf blowers. But leaf blowers aren’t just a culture-war lightning rod; in some places, they’re leading to personal conflict. In Evanston, Illinois, a suburb north of Chicago, several landscape workers allege they’ve been harassed by people reporting violations of the local ban.

The American Green Zone Alliance noted in a recent statement that “heavy-handed bans on gas-powered leaf blowers can unintentionally create stress and hardship for workers who often labor for low wages, with limited benefits or control over their working conditions.”

Although there remain a lot of details to work out, the organization is still pushing lawn care to go electric. “We are trying to convince our industry, ‘Look, we need to accelerate this,’” Mabe said.

The alliance is advocating for incentives that are sufficient to make the new equipment affordable for landscaping businesses operating on razor-thin margins. (In the end, lower fuel and maintenance costs for electric blowers can save companies money if the equipment is properly cared for, Mabe said.) Seasonal bans on gas-powered leaf blowers may be more feasible in some places than year-round ones, because they leave short windows for using the fossil-fueled devices in the spring and fall to take care of heavy cleanup jobs.

Another solution: Customers could loosen their expectations and accept a scattering of leaves, instead of demanding a perfectly manicured lawn. “Now, if that aesthetic was more relaxed, that could help change things,” Banks said. “Maybe they wouldn’t need to carry so many batteries.” Leaving some leaves on the ground is, at least ecologically speaking, a good thing — decaying leaves fertilize the soil and form a protective layer that provides shelter for snails, bees, and butterflies.

And of course, in many cases, a leaf blower isn’t needed at all: You can do as Blanchett advises and take matters into your own hands with a good-old fashioned rake.

On a scorching summer day, dozens of farm laborers paused their work picking banana peppers in a remote field 26 miles from Fresno and filed into a pop-up medical clinic. It was a chance to pick up medication and take basic health assessments, such as blood pressure and glucose monitoring.

For almost a decade, the University of California San Francisco has been fielding mobile clinics like this one in rural Fresno County to support a hard-to-reach population of unauthorized immigrants who otherwise would avoid routine health care.

The program gathered steam through the COVID-19 pandemic and during California’s decade-long expansion of health care to immigrants who are in the country without authorization. But this year, doctors are starting to notice that laborers aren’t showing up for care like they used to.

The doctors sense the decline in participation is connected to the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement activity. UCSF mobile health clinic director Dr. Kenny Banh said patient visits to his rural mobile health vans started dropping at the beginning of the year, when President Donald Trump took office for his second term, vowing to crack down on illegal immigration.

“There’s a lot of distrust. I come from the university, I have a white coat; people are worried. We do as much as we can to tell them how we protect their data,” Banh said.

Dr. Kenny Banh, director of the mobile health unit for UCSF-Fresno, at a health fair at Harris Ranch in Coalinga on Oct. 18, 2025.

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According to UCSF, visits to their mobile clinics dropped by around 36% as enforcement activity increased in California. In 2024, the mobile clinics would see on average 34 patients per outing, but in the past few months, the number of patients had dropped to around 22 per outing. People are also less willing to sign up for Medi-Cal, the state’s health insurance program for lower-income households, because they fear giving the government their data if they aren’t authorized to be in the country, Banh said.

It could get worse.

California scaled back the law that allows all income-eligible residents regardless of immigration status to receive health insurance through Medi-Cal by temporarily limiting enrollment next year. And, counties are bracing for Medicaid cuts under the budget law Trump signed earlier this year that they say will make it harder for them to sustain programs serving distinct populations, like the one that brings health care to rural farmworkers.

“It's going to be more restrictive in terms of work requirements, more regular re-enrollments, and more stringent requirements on states to comply with federal mandates,” Maria-Elena De Trinidad Young, an assistant professor of public health at UC Merced. “This is a push-out. The policy is really designed to restrict people from accessing Medicaid, or you know, in California, we call it Medi-Cal.”

UCSF-Fresno Medical student Darlene Tran checks the blood pressure of a farmworker in an equipment barn during part of the Rural Mobile Health program visit at a farm outside of Helm on June 16, 2025.

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Getting health care to remote communities

The mobile clinic Banh leads is part of a larger initiative from the Fresno Department of Public Health to reduce chronic and communicable diseases among hard-to-reach populations in the county. It gained funding most recently through a COVID-19 relief law that Fresno County steered to the clinics, which were led by UCSF and Saint Agnes Medical Center.

The COVID-19 money is running out, but the program has another year of funding locked in.

Farmworkers harvest banana peppers at a farm near the town of Helm on July 1, 2025.

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Farmworkers line up in an equipment barn to get a check-up by the staff of UCSF-Fresno, part of the Rural Mobile Health program, at a farm outside of Helm on June 16, 2025.

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Farmworkers line up in an equipment barn to get a check-up by the staff of UCSF-Fresno, part of the Rural Mobile Health program, at a farm outside of Helm on June 16, 2025.

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Clinics from both organizations can be found at community events, food distribution drives in rural communities, schools, and sometimes at farm working sites. The Saint Agnes mobile clinic van has two exam rooms inside for patients to receive care.

A patient walks into the Saint Agnes Mobile Health Unit mobile clinic, parked in the parking lot of Rojas Pierce Park in Mendota on May 21, 2025.

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Patient and Parlier resident Javier Hernandez getting his blood pressure and blood sugar test during a check-up.

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Doctor Nicholas Gill is pulling blood sugar testing strips from a container during a check-up examination in the Saint Agnes Mobile Health Unit mobile clinic, parked in the City Heritage Park parking lot in Parlier on May 16, 2025.

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According to Ivonne Der Torosian, vice president of community health and well-being with Saint Agnes Medical Center, the program is designed to provide medical school students an opportunity to serve the community and create access to health care.

“We are explicitly contracted to go out to rural Fresno County and serve agricultural workers, partner with employers of those farming workers, and also provide services to their families.”

UCSF-Fresno staff member checks the blood sugar of a farmworker during a check-up in an equipment barn during a Rural Mobile Health program visit at a farm outside of Helm on June 16, 2025.

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Community health workers also provide health education and make referrals to nearby primary care providers for individuals who cannot be treated on-site.

“We do basic screenings, including primary and preventive care, for many of the families we serve. We’re looking at connecting them to primary care providers,” Der Torosiran said. “We are providing vaccinations, we are providing glucose monitoring, and looking at their hypertension and blood pressure readings. So, really basic services they would get in a primary care setting."

Dr. Ebraheem Quadri examines a patient in the parking lot outside the Saint Agnes Mobile Health Unit clinic, located in Rojas Pierce Park in Mendota on Aug. 28, 2025.

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No nearby hospital

Dr. Navdeep Lehga, a resident physician, recently began a shift in the Saint Agnes medical van in Mendota’s Rojas Pierce Park. It’s an agricultural community just less than one hour west of Fresno. A line of people awaited her on the curb to pick up food from the distribution center and to see her and her team for a check-up.

A resident sits on a chair in front of the Saint Agnes Mobile Health Unit mobile clinic parked in the parking lot of Rojas Pierce Park in Mendota on Aug. 28, 2025.

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As the morning progressed, Navdeep saw patient after patient in the mobile clinic's exam room or went outside to see patients in the parking lot, checking blood pressure with a gauge strap on their patients' arms and glucose levels with finger pricks.

Dr. Navdeep Lehga sets up equipment in the exam room of the Saint Agnes Mobile Health Unit mobile clinic parked in the parking lot of Rojas Pierce Park in Mendota on Aug. 28, 2025.

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Dr. Navdeep Lehga checks a patient’s blood sugar in the exam room of the Saint Agnes Mobile Health Unit clinic, parked in the lot of Rojas Pierce Park in Mendota on Aug. 28, 2025.

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Dr. Navdeep Lehga checks a patient’s blood sugar in the exam room of the Saint Agnes Mobile Health Unit clinic, parked in the lot of Rojas Pierce Park in Mendota on Aug. 28, 2025.

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She said most of the patients she sees are farm workers and immigrants. Much of the rural population doesn’t have easy access to medical care — the nearest hospital is 35 miles away. Some of her patients may seek out the medical van for primary care because they don’t know where else to go.

“That's why they come here. We give them the gist of what's going on. But we're limited on our supplies and what we can check,” she said.

Lehga says the number of people coming to the van has slowed down since immigration enforcement has kicked up. She has heard patients speaking to staff during the intake session talk about their fears of coming to the van and seeking out health care after a summer of intensified immigration raids.

Dr. Navdeep Lehga examines a patient in the parking lot outside the Saint Agnes Mobile Health Unit clinic, located in Rojas Pierce Park in Mendota on Aug. 28, 2025.

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“We did notice there used to be a lot more patients coming before they have gotten scared and they don't want to because they're not sure who will show up,” Lehga said. “They did feel comfortable before coming here because they knew it was safe. Now I think patients are more scared to come in general just because they don't know who can show up.”

Dr. Arianna Crediford, chief resident physician with Fresno St. Agnes Rural Mobile Health, said that visits to the van have dropped by 15 to 20% this year.

“We can speculate that it’s because of the issues with immigration at this time, that seems to be a big influence with farmworkers and food packing,” she said.

Crediford said she’s heard some patients mention the worry about seeking care and what that might imply for them but they have made it clear that they don’t collect immigration information and that they don’t need to talk to them about it at all.

UCSF-Fresno staff member checks the blood sugar of a farmworker during a check-up in an equipment barn during a Rural Mobile Health program visit at a farm outside of Helm on June 16, 2025.

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“The idea that people have to be scared to receive health care is heartbreaking. It would really put their health conditions at risk, conditions that require weekly sometimes monthly follow-up. We’re the last line of defense that they’re able to go to besides emergency rooms when they come in with an actual life-threatening event. The day this population can’t comfortably and safely seek care their health is going to be put in danger because of that,” said Crediford.

The population, which is often uninsured, suffers from high rates of hypertension, diabetes or high blood sugar, and high cholesterol, oftentimes without treatment, Banh said. Frequently, the rural health team is the only health care provider patients see.

A farmworker harvests banana peppers at a farm near the town of Helm on July 1, 2025.

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With fewer patients showing up for preventive care, Banh said, people will inevitably get sicker and end up in the emergency room. That costs more money and threatens to overwhelm the health system.

“People don’t disappear because you changed policy. They still need care. What you’re doing is delaying care until the outcomes are worse, and there’s not much you can do but hospitalize the patient,” he said.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.