The Brief

In the drive to quickly rebuild areas devastated by the recent L.A. fires, the most vulnerable workers could be exploited by unscrupulous employers.

That’s the warning of a coalition of anti-trafficking and legal aid groups, whose leaders point to research linking a rise in worker abuse to natural disasters, most notably in the construction industry.

Coalition member Chancee Martorell has been working on human trafficking issues for three decades as executive director of the Thai Community Development Center.

“The construction industry is going to need a massive number of workers in this rebuilding,” Martorell said. “This is a plea for people to really be aware and to ensure that we don't rebuild in such haste that we neglect to think about the potential of workers being recruited and trafficked.”

Inhumane working conditions 

The largest group of workers most at risk for exploitation are immigrants who are desperate for work but lack English proficiency to know their rights, Martorell said.

Labor violations could range from wage theft to fraud and coercion associated with labor trafficking – when workers are lured to jobs with false promises and find themselves trapped in inhumane conditions.

Some workers have their passports taken from them, while others who lack legal status are threatened with deportation, tying them to their abusive employer, Martorell said.

Workers may be provided housing and food but are told they now owe the employer money.

“You're being forced to work without pay, or a debt is exacted on you, and now you're having to work off that debt,” Martorell said.

One of the country’s largest labor trafficking cases involved hundreds of workers recruited from India and the UAE to repair oil rigs damaged by Hurricane Katrina nearly 20 years ago.

A jury awarded them millions of dollars after workers said they had been forced to work round-the-clock shifts and to live in labor camps.

Not just the construction industry 

Anti-trafficking experts in the coalition say construction workers are not the only ones at risk of exploitation after natural disasters.

Disaster survivors often find themselves in financial straits that make them more susceptible to traffickers, said Stephanie Richard who directs the Sunita Jain Anti-Trafficking Initiative at Loyola Law School.

“People have lost their homes, their transportation, their access to medical care, their employment,” Richard said. “Sometimes promises of help which sound too good to be true can be.”

Others in danger of exploitation: the domestic workers and day laborers who lost their livelihoods in the L.A.-area fires.

What local government can do

Coalition members have been calling on L.A. and county officials to prepare for a rise in labor abuses as rebuilding efforts gain momentum.

They want government officials to spotlight labor trafficking so the public understands that it’s connected to natural disasters. The hope is that greater visibility about the issue will help trafficking victims recognize what’s happening to them.

They are also calling on the city and county to update its procurement procedures so they only hire businesses that have policies in place to prevent trafficking. Another coalition proposal is that government workers in disaster areas be trained to recognize labor trafficking.

Coalition members say they have been working with the office of Supervisor Holly Mitchell to produce a motion that incorporates their recommendations.

One woman said that better-trained government workers would have helped her exit a situation where she had been trafficked into domestic servitude as a nanny after the Tubbs Fire in northern California in 2017.

“It’s about ensuring that local public assistance and health and human services workers are trained and equipped with identifying (labor trafficking) when they're doing client interviews," said Miranda, who asked to only be identified by her first name. "Because that's a barrier in my experience,”

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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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.