The Brief

On a recent morning, Steve Lubanski was cleaning and sorting out items of what remained of The Bunny Museum on Lake Avenue.

Most of the building is gone, although the front gray wall remains. It's along that wall where Lubanksi placed pieces that survived the fire. His goal: to signal to passersby where the museum once stood, and where it will return.

“ It's not structural anymore,” he said of the remaining wall. “You can't build with it, but I want to leave it up and it'll be an homage to the previous building.”

The Eaton Fire destroyed the world’s largest bunny collection — more than 60,000 items — housed at the Altadena museum. But Lubanski and his wife Candace Frazee are already planning its comeback.

Collecting thousands of bunnies

Lubanski and Frazee still light up when they tell the story of how they began their collection.

When they were dating, Frazee began calling her now-husband “honey bunny.” The couple later began gifting each other bunny items as a token of their love. The exchange became a daily ritual, amassing into an assortment of thousands and thousands of items. Their gifts to each other, together with donated pieces, made up the museum's extensive collection.

Steve Lubansky and his wife Candace Frazee are the cofounders of The Bunny Museum. They also lived on the property that was burned down by the Eaton Fire.

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Brandon Killman

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They first put bunny items on display at an exhibit held in 1998 at the home where they lived in Pasadena. Nearly a decade later, their collection had outgrown that space and they moved to the Altadena location that was destroyed in the Eaton Fire. Over the years, the museum garnered recognition from the Guinness World Records, The Smithsonian and the Los Angeles Almanac.

On the museum’s Instagram, the couple photographed visitors with their bunny swag or their own collectibles — from tattoos to plush toys. Frazee also shows me what they call the "bunny bump," a Bunny Museum greeting that involves a peace sign or bunny ears and a fist bump.

The "bunny bump" is the official greeting of the museum.

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The couple aimed to create a fun, unique experience with a salon-style display — curated exhibits that spanned top to floor. A Christmas tree with bunny ornaments, keychains, plates, paintings, parade floats were all housed there. They also kept bunnies — real living, breathing ones — that made it out during the fire.

When they open again the couple say they’ll have an area of the museum permanently dedicated to the fire.

“ We can't forget about what happened,” Lubanski said.

Trying to save The Bunny Museum

The duo were glued to the news on Jan. 7 as Altadena went up in flames. The fire didn’t seem all that close for most of the evening. Then the power went out.

Frazee began packing up their most important items, including the live bunnies. They tried to save as much as they could — the phrase “would’ve, could’ve, should’ve” pops into Lubanski’s mind, he said.

The couple said they never received an emergency alert. Still, after midnight, as neighbors evacuated, they said the neighborhood was empty.

There was a fire hydrant next to the museum, which was also their home, but Lubanski said when firefighters came by it was dry.

So he grabbed a household hose and tried to wash down the area ahead of the fire arriving. The smoke and the wind was so bad that the couple could barely see anything in front of them, but they remained for as long as they could.

He gave up in the morning and believes the building likely went up in flames shortly after.

The museum was destroyed, the apartment building next door was seemingly untouched.

The next steps

The day I visited Lubanski and Frazee, a woman and her young daughter were dropping off bunny items, including Easter decor. Frazee showed them what was left of the collection, away from the dangerous parts of the rubble.

 ”The love has been incredible,” she said. “We'll come up to the debris and in the morning find a (toy) bunny sitting right there in the driveway. Like somebody cared enough to come up and donate.”

Museum cofounder Steve Lubansky cleans the remaining front wall where they plan to rebuild The Bunny Museum.

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They have a storage container sitting on the side of the lot, where they’re packing anything from the debris that they can.

The couple is also receiving personal donations. Frazee said that anything donated to the museum, the couple cannot use for themselves. Amazon and other stores’ gift cards have gone a long way, she said.

“It's just so weird how you lose everything,” Frazee said. “It's like we're shopping every day.”

At the museum, they’re trying to prevent enormous destruction again.

When the museum doors reopen — they hope in about three years — the structure will look different. The couple is planning to build with fire resistant materials and remove vegetation around the building.

“Nothing that could burn,” Lubanski said, “we’re over that.”

They hope to have a soft opening as soon as the building is rebuilt to showcase the new space to the public and supporters. Later, they’ll start designing their bunny exhibitions and everything that comes curating and running a space.

Lubanski and Frazee, who have yet to find permanent housing, are grateful to have the aid they’ve been given, but “it’s never enough,” she said.

Watch the video

Temporary mailing address to send bunny items:

The Bunny Museum
2335 E Colorado Blvd.
Suite 115 PMB 350
Pasadena, CA 91107

The city of Long Beach on Wednesday unveiled early mockups for new lighting, historical markers, murals and a plaza that will mark the neighborhood along Broadway as a cultural district for the LGBTQ+ community.

The district, designated by the City Council in 2024, will stretch 1.4 miles, between Alamitos Avenue and Temple Avenue, in an area that’s historically been home to many gay bars and other LGBTQ-focused businesses.

The borders of Long Beach’s new LGBTQ+ cultural district.

Right now, the city does not have enough money set aside to fund a redesign of that whole stretch and initially focus on two blocks between Hermosa and Junipero avenues using $3.3 million they’ve so far socked away, Public Works Department spokesperson Jocelin Padilla said.

In the initial phase, the city will add color-changing festoon lighting between Hermosa and Junipero Avenues, wraps and banners on streetpoles, and murals. There will also be a Pride Plaza, situated at the corner of Junipero Avenue and Broadway, with historical markers and educational signs that draw on the city’s LGBTQ+ history.

Designs for the site, officials say, are based heavily on existing districts in San Jose, Chicago and Montreal.

Padilla said there is no date set yet for the work to start, though the city hopes to begin in early 2027 and finish sometime in 2028. A survey was launched this week to garner feedback on the proposed designs. Early renderings of the plaza, Padilla said, were intentionally vague, so that people could give further input on how it should look.

Long Beach unveiled proposed designs for a new Pride Plaza on Broadway as part of an LGBTQ+ cultural district on June 17, 2026.

Future phases will look to add foliage, decorative crosswalks, plaques, signage and construct a memorial to those who died from the HIV/AIDS epidemic. It would be similar in design to memorials built in New York and Chicago.

This comes as multiple city-run surveys and workshops in October 2022 and 2023 found that many feel the area is poorly lit at night and doesn’t have enough tree shading in the day. There was also a high demand for murals, parking spaces and bike lanes.

City planners say the location, which includes Bixby Park near its center, is best suited for the district given its density of LGBTQ+ shops and bars, and as the location of the city’s yearly Pride parade.

“This corridor has long been a place that served as a home for gathering space and a source of pride for all the LGBTQ+ community,” said Councilmember Cindy Allen. “This corridor carries a powerful history of community advocacy, celebration, business, and resilience.”

“Together we are building a district that reflects your voices, honors your history, supports local businesses, and celebrates who you are, not just during Pride, but every single day,” Allen said.

You can see more renderings and give feedback here.

Think of pretty much any country, and you can likely find its cuisine in Los Angeles. But when we saw that Belgium was lined up to play Iran on Sunday, June 21, at SoFi Stadium, it gave us pause. Is there a Belgian restaurant in L.A.?

It turns out the answer is complicated. Liège waffles — the dense, caramelized, pearl-sugar version of the Belgian classic — have a real foothold here, with spots like Belgium Waffle Haus in the San Fernando Valley. There's also FRitēS-FReaK, an Orange County food truck devoted entirely to Belgian-style double-fried fries, piled high with toppings like fried egg and bacon.

But a full Belgian dining experience, the kind with mussels and frites and a wall of Trappist beers, is harder to come by. For that, you'll need to drive about 40 miles south down the coast, where Brussels Bistro — with locations in San Clemente and Laguna Beach — pays homage to the cuisine of the distinct but tiny country that's the size of Maryland.

Walk into the San Clemente location, and a marquee above the bar spells out a kind of Belgian shorthand — WE ♥ BELGIUM, CROQUETTES, WAFFLE, FRITES — more mood than menu. Near the entrance, a replica of the Manneken-Pis — one of Belgium's best-known symbols, the naked young boy happily urinating into a basin — sits on a shelf dressed in the Belgian national team jersey, an American flag planted beside him.

Chef-owner Thomas Crijns came from Ottignies, outside Brussels, in the early 2000s to consult on the Laguna Beach location — and never left. He runs the restaurant alongside his wife Carol, who is French-born with Persian heritage, a combination that will make the June 21 match particularly interesting in their household. When asked to describe the food of his home country, Crijns quickly quips: "Belgian cuisine is like French cuisine but with less pretension."

A World Cup match plays above the bar at Brussels Bistro, alongside a deep list of Belgian beers including Chimay, Duvel and Kasteel.

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The menu reads like a love letter to Belgian culinary tradition — mussels, waffles, and carbonnade à la flamande, a Flemish stew made with beer and mustard — alongside a draft list that includes Chimay, Duvel, Rochefort and Delirium Tremens.

But the dish Crijns is most proud of is one most Americans have never heard of. The shrimp croquette is a staple of Belgian brasserie culture, made here with North Sea shrimp — what he calls "the caviar of the North Sea" — flown in every Thursday from a Dutch supplier.

Four golden, breaded croquettes arranged on a white plate over a bed of fried parsley, with a lemon wedge and a dollop of sauce on top of one croquette.

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The croquettes arrived four to a plate, golden and perfectly formed, the exterior giving way to a creamy molten interior where the tiny shrimp created a texture unlike anything I'd had before — something close to squid, but more delicate. The kind of dish that makes more sense with a Belgian beer in hand and a side of frites within reach. The match, though, is a more complicated proposition in the Crijns household.

A taste of Belgium, one tap at a time, at Brussels Bistro in San Clemente.

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Carol would know better than most. Her uncle runs a Persian restaurant in Irvine, part of an Orange County Iranian community of nearly 37,000 — a concentration that rivals many a concentration that rivals many larger cities

On June 21, she expects fans from both sides to fill the restaurant.

"I'm gonna do everything I can to bring as many family members," she said. "To tease my husband as much as I can."

"I'm grateful that the tournament allows us to put aside our differences and bring people together."

Coming from almost anyone else, that might sound like a talking point. Coming from a French-Persian woman married to a Belgian chef, watching Iran play Belgium at their own restaurant — it sounds like something she's earned the right to say.

For the Iranian diaspora in Los Angeles, the feelings around Iran's World Cup participation have been complicated. Monday's game between Iran and New Zealand ended in a 2-2 draw at SoFi Stadium. Now, Iran prepares to face Belgium at the same stadium on Sunday in a match that continues to carry weight well beyond the scoreline.

For Sahar Shomali, who owns Kouzeh, an Iranian bakery located in the Miracle Mile neighborhood, those feelings live somewhere between the oven and the morning news.

Kouzeh takes its name from the Farsi word for a clay jar. A small row of them sits on the bakery case that greets customers when they walk in. On the wall above, a laminated National Geographic map of Iran hangs alongside a small illustration featuring an Iranian saying: "What comes out of the vessel is whatever's inside it."

Sahar Shomali didn't plan for the name and the saying to connect. She just liked the way Kouzeh sounded.

Barbari is one of Iran's most beloved breads — a long, oval flatbread with a golden, slightly crisp crust and a soft, chewy interior. It’s as common in Tehran as a baguette is in Paris. And for Shomali, it was the one thing she couldn't stop thinking about after she left and arrived in the U.S.

A selection of breads at Kouzeh, including barbari (far left), kelaneh (the folded triangle), and several sweet breads tied to specific Iranian provinces.

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Growing up, she lived a 10-minute walk from a barbari bakery, and her father would go every morning before breakfast, coming home with two pieces still hot from the oven. There is a running understanding among Iranians, she said, that you never make it home with the bread whole. Someone always tears off a piece on the walk back.

Kouzeh, an Iranian bakery on Wilshire Boulevard in Mid-Wilshire, opened earlier this year.

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"I really missed that," she said. "Especially the barbari. That was my thing."

When she got to Los Angeles, she went looking for a replacement— and found Persian bakeries making barbari that were, to her, not the real thing. So she did what she calls the opposite: went to culinary school, and spent years moving as far from Iranian cuisine as possible, taking every Californian and French restaurant job she could find.

"So that I could just learn everything that I didn't know," she said.

It worked. In 2018 she left her last pastry chef job and applied everything she'd learned to make barbari. Once she felt she’d cracked it, Kouzeh followed.

Shomali doesn't just stick to barbari. She offers 25 very different breads, some sweet, some savory, each tied to a specific Iranian province. Standouts include kelaneh, a savory Kurdish flatbread with an herb filling — scallion, parsley, cilantro — pillowy soft with a slight char, somewhere between a flour tortilla and a scallion pancake. The kakouli bakhtiyari, made with grape molasses and flavored with fennel and fenugreek seeds, walks the line between sweet and savory. And eashly koukah, a festive bread from Tabriz filled with ginger and turmeric paste, rounds out a case that spans nearly the full breadth of the country.

The bakery case at Kouzeh, where each bread and pastry is labeled with its city or province of origin.

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None of the breads come from family recipes — Shomali built each one through research, conversations with friends, a single bread book her cousin sent from Iran, and a culinary background that lets her reverse-engineer a recipe from a description alone. The shelves lining the walls tell a similar story: Saba Jams, small-batch preserves made by a childhood friend now based in San Francisco; torshi from Nicole's Kitchen; goods from ZoZo Baking — all Iranian women food makers in California that Shomali sought out personally.

"I called them all up," she said. "I said, I have shelves, and I want Persian goods on those shelves."

While having little interest in sports or the World Cup, Shomali's heart lies with her home country. Every morning, before the bread goes in, she checks the news from Iran — a ritual her customers share.

Even mid-rush, Sahar Shomali makes time for the regulars who keep coming back.

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"We stress about it together, we grieve about it together. But people still show up and buy bread."

It's not lost on her, the duality of how she and her community feel torn between the country they adopted and the one they came from.

"Both of my countries are at war," she said. "I can't take sides in either one."

The Los Angeles City Council has approved a ballot proposal for November that would allow non-citizens to vote in council and school board elections.

The proposal, if approved by voters, could lay the groundwork for dramatically changing the electorate in Los Angeles. There are approximately 1.3 million to 1.4 million non-citizen residents living in the city, according to Data USA, making up nearly 36% of the city's population.

Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez championed the proposal, saying non-citizen residents have just as much of a stake in L.A. as citizens do.

“These are people who live here, they pay their taxes here, they raise their families here. And they are directly affected by the decisions we make every single day,” Soto-Martinez told the council. “They deserve to have a voice.”

The City Council voted 10-5 on Wednesday to place the charter change on the Nov. 3 ballot.

Councilmember John Lee voted no, expressing concerns about the cost of having non-citizens vote and the logistics of determining who is eligible. For example, how long would someone have to have lived in L.A. to vote?

“Those decisions will inevitably be viewed by some as benefitting allies or harming opponents even if that was not the actual intent,” Lee said. “The perception alone can undermine public confidence in our elections.”

Councilmember Imelda Padilla said she had another concern: “I am very nervous this could potentially create a disincentive to become a legal citizen.”

Soto-Martinez assured his colleague that the details of any plan to have non-citizens vote would be worked out in ordinances later. For now, he said, he wanted to send a message.

“I want this to be a way to show the world that Los Angeles is going the opposite direction of the federal government,” Soto-Martinez said. “While they are trying to take away people’s rights, we’re expanding it.”

The measure was one of several charter changes approved for the ballot.

The council is also placing before voters a plan to dramatically increase funding for the city’s beleaguered Department of Recreation and Parks. For years, the department has faced deep staffing cuts and struggled with aging facilities.

Under the proposal, parks funding would double over the next decade.

A coalition of parks advocates had sought the increase and many spoke to the council Wednesday.

“We need more green space and parks to have family gatherings,” said Ana Nieves of the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust.

Councilmember Bob Blumenfield was the lone no vote on the measure. He said mandating an increase in funding for parks means there’ll have to be cuts elsewhere in the budget in the future.

“So don’t pat yourselves when you have an easy vote because it's out of context,” Blumenfield told his colleagues.

Voters in November will also be asked to expand the power of the City Council over the police department, including the ability to direct policy. Right now, a five-member civilian police commission appointed by the mayor has sole responsibility for setting policy.

Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez said the measure is needed because the commission has failed to reign in the police department on issues like pretextual stops. That’s when an officer uses a minor traffic violation as the reason to stop — and sometimes harass — a person.

“In some neighborhoods, policing is still like the 1990s,” Hernandez said. “It might not be happening like that in all parts of the city, but I can point to where it's happening in my district.”

Under the proposal, the council would be prohibited from getting involved in individual investigations or discipline.

Still, Lee warned the measure would lead to City Council meddling in the police department.

“Colleagues, I warn you against doing this,” he said. “Citizens oversight was put in place exactly to keep us out of politicizing the LAPD.”

The council approved a series of other proposed charter changes for the November ballot, ranging from increasing fines for ethics violations to establishing a director of public works.

The council rejected a number of other proposed charter changes, referring them instead to a City Council committee. They included a proposal to expand the City Council from 15 to 25 members and one to switch elections to ranked choice voting, saying the ideas needed more study.