Adolfo Guzman-Lopez
is an arts and general assignment reporter on LAist's Explore LA team.
Published June 24, 2025 10:26 AM
Stores in L.A.'s flower district near 8th Street and San Pedro Street in downtown L.A.
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Topline:
Vendors in downtown L.A.’s wholesale flower district say business is down 60% after a recent immigration raid. A large part of their customer base is flower sellers hawking roses in buckets on street corners. Many of them are immigrants, and vendors say the fear of deportation is causing many to stay home.
Why it matters: Wholesale vendors, who buy their flowers from overseas, were already hurting after tariffs caused prices to rise. With the current drop in sales, many are wondering how long they can stay in business.
Why now: Immigration agents made arrests in the area earlier this month, causing chaos. Since then it’s been quiet. One floral company owner said the news was amplified on social media, and that dissemination is needlessly keeping many people away.
Normally, L.A.’s flower market is bustling with people speeding down sidewalks and indoor aisles with armfuls of flowers. But on Monday, there was plenty of elbow room.
The flower market is eerily empty
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“It's Monday, today's the day where a lot of florists come to get their flowers and as you can tell, it's kind of dead,” said Evelin Esparza, standing in her shop on 8th and San Pedro streets, surrounded by sunflowers, pink roses and white gladioli.
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Rose sellers staying home impacts L.A.’s wholesale flower market
She began running Armenta Bee Flowers with her husband three years ago.
Evelin Esparza runs Armenta Bee Flowers with her husband in L.A.'s wholesale flower district.
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The wholesale flower district is a multi-block zone where storefronts large and small face the streets and even more businesses operate in stalls inside malls inside.
Many of them are owned and run by Spanish speaking immigrants and many of their employees are also Latin American immigrants, some without proper documentation to remain in the U.S.
Vendors at L.A.'s wholesale flower district say the sidewalks would normally be bustling on a Monday.
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As soon as the first raid hit … I'm in charge of our social media, I had to tell my followers and my customers, that [immigration agents] were here and they were present.
— Evelin Esparza, co-owner of Armenta Bee Flowers
Esparza said when immigration agents suddenly arrived in the area last week, it caused chaos. The owner of her mall closed the street-facing steel curtain to keep agents from coming in.
“As soon as the first [immigration] raid hit… I'm in charge of our social media and my parents are immigrants, I had to tell my followers and my people who are my customers, that [immigration agents] were here and they were present,” Esparza said.
Vendors in L.A.'s wholesale flower district cater to a range of events.
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For many store owners like Esparza, it had been a busy May, with graduations, Mother’s Day and other events.
But since the raids, business has dropped by 60%, she said. One big reason: street corner flower sellers, mostly immigrants, who sell roses and bouquets at traffic stops are staying away.
“They appear small, but those buyers are a big part of this business,” said Silvia Lozano, manager at My Floral Factory.
One client, Lozano said, would stop by each week to buy 1,000 bunches of 25 roses each. The client would then employ about a dozen people to distribute and sell those flowers, including family members.
Sometimes [customers] call and say, ‘Hey, how is it out there, is it still kind of rough up there?’ No, it's not [I say] but they’re scared.
— Robert Rojas, owner of flower shop in L.A.'s flower district
Lozano said only about 20% of those people are still showing up to buy flowers. But the raids have also deterred her other customers, U.S. citizens who run small and large flower-related businesses.
Fear, founded and unfounded
So far, no other immigration agents have turned up at the market. But the fear of their presence is having a powerful effect. Robert Rojas, owner of The Vinny’s Company, said his regular customers have been checking in.
“Sometimes they call and say, ‘Hey, how is it out there, is it still kind of rough up there?’ No, it's not [I say], but they’re scared,” Rojas said.
Robert Rojas said he's had to buy fewer flowers from South American purveyors since immigration raids caused business to decline.
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Some wonder if such pervasive fear is warranted.
“I think there's a lot of hype, so it's scaring people,” said Annette Yonemitsu, who was at the mall on Monday to buy flowers for her shop, Century City Flower Market.
She said amplification of the raids on social media is partly to blame for people staying away from the flower district.
“I was here when the helicopters were around — everybody's like, ‘They're coming in.’ Nobody came in,” she said.
How long can they hang on?
Vendors said they were already paying more for flowers after the Trump administration announced tariffs earlier this year. The vast majority of their flowers arrive by plane from Colombia and other South American countries a few days after being picked, and the announcement of tariffs had caused prices to rise.
The recent drop in business due to the raids is adding to that pain, with some wondering how long they can stay afloat.
One owner, who would not give his name, said his 10 foot by 30 foot stall costs $4,000 in monthly rent. He estimated that he can stay afloat for only two to three months at the current level of sales.
Others pay a lot more.
“ I can't wait. I got a lot of overhead. I gotta pay bills, rent,” Rojas said.
Rent for his shop and the adjacent store run by his brother is $14,000 a month, he said.
There’s also another aspect of the current atmosphere: people are having fewer get-togethers, which means lower demand for flowers for all occasions, from funerals wreaths to wedding arrangements.
“We are Latinos and we love to have parties, but people aren’t having as many parties as they used to,” Lozano said.
Makenna Cramer
covers the daily drumbeat of Southern California — events, processes and nuances making it a unique place to call home.
Published April 29, 2026 5:01 PM
Workers repair potholes and skim a large portion of street in Los Angeles on Jan. 13.
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Topline:
MyLA311, the system designed to help residents access city services for graffiti removal or streetlight outages, had a makeover last year, but since then, some Angelenos and Los Angeles city staff have reported it has been plagued by problems. City officials say they're working to make fixes.
Why now: Councilmembers Imelda Padilla and Monica Rodriguez led a motion aimed at addressing the issues concerning the system’s overall functionality and accountability. The City Council approved that motion Wednesday.
Why it matters: “Reports and individuals are telling us that because of this broken 311 app, folks are once again going back to using Excel sheets, phone calls, paper and pen in order to engage in service delivery, and I think that that's a problem,” Padilla said during the council meeting.
The backstory: MyLA311 is set up so residents can report non-emergency issues and track requests for tree inspections, homeless encampment services and illegal dumping, to name a few. There are 86 options in neighborhoods, according to Mayor Karen Bass’ office, which helped launch the new system.
What's next: The motion instructs Public Works to make a formal report of any problems with the system, including how they may be affecting service timelines and completion rates, and asks the city’s IT agency to come up with potential solutions.
MyLA311, the system designed to help residents access city services for graffiti removal or streetlight outages, got a makeover last year, but since then some Angelenos and Los Angeles city staff have reported it has been plagued by problems.
The city has received “numerous complaints” about the updated website and app, including issues with GPS and logging work, according to officials.
MyLA311 is set up so residents can report non-emergency issues and track requests for tree inspections, homeless encampment services and illegal dumping, to name a few. There are 86 options in neighborhoods, according to Mayor Karen Bass’ office, which helped launch the new system.
Staffers within the city’s Department of Public Works have said they’ve been frustrated by the rollout, according to city officials. They say it now takes longer to add their responses to service requests, and the city can’t record completed work that doesn’t have a service request connected to it.
City Council members Imelda Padilla and Monica Rodriguez led a motion aimed at addressing the issues, saying they’ve caused concerns about the system’s overall functionality and accountability.
“Reports and individuals are telling us that because of this broken 311 app, folks are once again going back to using Excel sheets, phone calls, paper and pen in order to engage in service delivery, and I think that that's a problem,” Padilla said during Wednesday’s council meeting.
The motion instructs Public Works to make a formal report of any problems with the system, including how they may be affecting service timelines and completion rates, and asks the city’s IT agency to come up with potential solutions.
It was approved in a 12-0 vote Wednesday. Councilmembers Bob Blumenfield, Eunisses Hernandez and Adrin Nazarian were absent.
How we got here
Bass announced the launch of the new MyLA311 last year, saying the previous website and app were outdated and had lasted years past their lifecycle.
In a 2023 directive, she’d called for the system to be modernized with the goal of providing better customer service and communication about the status of residents’ requests.
“This new and improved way to request and receive city services is another example of how we are breaking away from the old way of doing things to make our neighborhoods cleaner and safer,” Bass said in a March 2025 statement.
But some people say the new system is falling short.
The Sylmar Neighborhood Council agreed the system needs improvements, writing in a community impact statement that MyLA311 fails to serve L.A. taxpayers effectively if it’s difficult to use or inaccurate.
In public comments, some residents cited “major issues” with the system, including GPS and location accuracy, invalid addresses and missing or incomplete service categories. One commenter wrote that addresses were being routed to other areas, some of them outside the city.
“As a result, they frequently lead to confusion in the field, delays in response and, in some cases, requests going unaddressed due to the difficulty in locating the reported issue or misdirection caused by inaccurate data,” the commenter said.
What’s ahead
The City Council approved several instructions aimed at improving MyLA311, including the following:
Public Works is expected to report back on its issues with the system.
The city’s Information Technology Agency is expected to report on system performance, including operational issues, and provide solutions as needed.
Public Works and IT are expected to provide quarterly reports on service request data, including backlogs, average response times and requests received and closed.
The Supreme Court's conservative majority seemed ready Wednesday to allow the Trump administration to potentially proceed with mass deportations of more than a million foreign nationals, including those from Haiti and Syria, who live and work legally in the United States.
How we got here: Until now these individuals have been accorded temporary legal status because their safety is imperiled by war or natural disasters in their home countries. Congress enacted the Temporary Protected Status program in 1990, and every president since then — Republican and Democrat — has embraced TPS. President Trump, however, is trying to end it. On Wednesday his solicitor general, D. John Sauer, told the justices that the statute clearly bars any court review of the administration's decisions. And he dismissed the idea that a separate law established to provide procedural fairness does not allow the courts to review the Homeland Security agency's decision-making either.
Read on . . . for more on today's court proceedings.
The Supreme Court's conservative majority seemed ready Wednesday to allow the Trump administration to potentially proceed with mass deportations of more than a million foreign nationals, including those from Haiti and Syria, who live and work legally in the United States.
Congress enacted the Temporary Protected Status program in 1990, and every president since then — Republican and Democrat — has embraced TPS. President Donald Trump, however, is trying to end it.
On Wednesday his solicitor general, D. John Sauer, told the justices that the statute clearly bars any court review of the administration's decisions. And he dismissed the idea that a separate law established to provide procedural fairness does not allow the courts to review the Homeland Security agency's decision-making either. Pressed by the court's three liberal justices, Sauer insisted that the courts cannot review anything.
"None of those procedural steps required by the statue are reviewable. That's your position?" asked Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
"Correct," responded Sauer.
"What you're basically saying is that Congress wrote a statute for no purpose," Sotomayor said.
Justice Elena Kagan noted that under the statute the secretary of Homeland Security is supposed to consult with the U.S. State Department about what the conditions are in those countries that people have been forced to flee. What if she didn't do that at all, Kagan asked. Or what if she asked, but the response from the State Department came back: "Wasn't that baseball game last night great!"
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked what would happen if the secretary used a Ouija board to make decisions?
To all these hypotheticals, Solicitor General Sauer stood firm. That prompted this from Sotomayor: "Now, we have a president saying at one point that Haiti is a 'filthy, dirty, and disgusting s--thole country.' I'm quoting him. He declared illegal immigrants, which he associated with TPS, as poisoning the blood of America. I don't see how that one statement is not a prime example … showing that a discriminatory purpose may have played a part in this decision."
Sauer pushed back, noting that Kristi Noem, the then-DHS secretary, had not mentioned race at all. That prompted this response from Justice Jackson, the only Black woman on the court, "So the position of the United States is that we have an actual racial epithet that we aren't allowed to look at all the context."
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the mother of two adopted Haitian children, interjected at that point to clarify the administration's position. Are you conceding that individuals with TPS status could bring a challenge based on race discrimination? she asked.
Sauer appeared to concede the point.
Representing the Haitians, lawyer Geoffrey Pipoly described the administration's review as "a sham."
"The true reason for the termination [of TPS status] is the president's racial animus toward non-white immigrants and bare dislike of Haitians in particular," Pipoly said. "The secretary herself described people from Haiti" and from other non-white countries as "killers, leeches, saying, 'We don't want them, not one,'" while "simultaneously enacting another humanitarian form of relief for white and only white South Africans."
That was too much for Justice Samuel Alito who asked Pipoly, "Do you think that if you put Syrians, Turks, Greeks and other people who live around the Mediterranean in a line-up, do you think you could say those people are … non-white?"
An uncomfortable Pipoly resisted categorizing each group until Alito got to his own roots.
"How about southern Italians?" Alito inquired, prompting laughter in the courtroom.
Responded Pipoly: "Certainly 120 years ago when we had our last wave of European immigration, southern Italians were not considered white. … Our concept of these things evolves over time."
At the end of Wednesday's court session, one thing was clear: President Trump may be furious at some of the conservative justices he appointed for invalidating his tariffs, but for the most part, he is getting his way. Especially in light of the court's 6-to-3 decision, announced Wednesday, which effectively guts what remains of the landmark Voting Rights Act, once celebrated as a signature achievement of American Democracy.
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Fiona Ng
is LAist's deputy managing editor and leads a team of reporters who explore food, culture, history, events and more.
Published April 29, 2026 4:14 PM
Artemis the German Shepherd is the last dog from Eaton Fire at Pasadena Humane to get adopted.
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Topline:
The last dog from the Eaton Fire taken in by Pasadena Humane has now been adopted.
Why it matters: The Eaton Fire destroyed nearly 9,500 structures, including about 6,000 homes. Two days after the first broke out, Pasadena Humane reported receiving more than 350 pets from displaced residents.
The backstory: Artemis the German shepherd was originally taken to the Pasadena animal shelter for emergency boarding. His family, which lost its home in the January fire, ultimately decided to put him up for adoption.
The last dog from the Eaton Fire taken in by Pasadena Humane has now been adopted.
Artemis the German shepherd was originally taken to the Pasadena animal shelter for emergency boarding. His family, which lost its home in the January fire, ultimately decided to put him up for adoption.
"The silver lining to all of that is — with all this tragedy — this incredible story of hope where we were able to help foster these animals we’re returning home," said Sarie Hooker, communications manager at Pasadena Humane.
During his stay at Pasadena Humane, the cream-color pup won over many hearts.
"He's just such a striking boy. He's got this really fun, loving personality. He's very regal," Hooker said.
Hooker said Artemis was adopted by a family through the shelter's foster-to-adopt program.
"He just did amazingly. And the next thing we knew, he was adopted," Hooker said. "So it's a happy story."
Artemis says hello to a new family.
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The Eaton Fire destroyed nearly 9,500 structures, including about 6,000 homes. Two days after the first broke out, Pasadena Humane reported receiving more than 350 pets from displaced residents.
By the second week of the fire, the shelter had taken in some 600 pets, Hooker said.
" In totality, we were able to help with thousands of animals specifically for emergency boarding," Hooker said, including every kind of pet you can think of, as well as wild animals.
" We were seeing skunks, squirrels, hawks, owls, peacocks, raccoons, possums," she said.
Artemis isn't just the last dog to find a home — or return home — from the Eaton Fire.
He is the last animal.
" Artemis was our final, final animal — like dog, cat, critter. Anything else under the sun. He was the last boy. So we're very happy," she said.
Mariana Dale
reports on K-12 education, including how students exercise their civic power.
Published April 29, 2026 2:31 PM
People gathered in downtown L.A. for May Day in 2025.
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Topline:
Southern California and national organizers are calling on communities to abstain from work, school and shopping Friday in recognition of May Day.
The backstory: May Day started after an 1886 strike tied to the fight for an eight-hour work day. The protest turned violent after police attacked workers. In the 1990s, L.A. organizers started to connect the labor movement with advocacy for immigrant rights.
What's new: This year’s “economic blackout” is modeled after January protests in Minnesota following the surge of immigration enforcement and shooting deaths of two U.S. citizens. “ Our vision includes an economy that works for everyone with a living wage, strong labor protections and programs that keep families housed, fed, educated and healthy,” said Francisco Moreno, executive director of the Council of Mexican Federations in North America, in a Tuesday press conference.
Find a rally: What’s typically the region’s largest May Day gathering starts Friday morning at MacArthur Park, and events are planned throughout the region.
The “economic blackout” is modeled after January protests in Minnesota following the surge of immigration enforcement and shooting deaths of two U.S. citizens.
“Our vision includes an economy that works for everyone with a living wage, strong labor protections and programs that keep families housed, fed, educated and healthy,” said Francisco Moreno, executive director of the Council of Mexican Federations in North America, in a Tuesday press conference.
The organization is one of more than 100 involved in planning a Los Angeles May Day rally with the theme, “solo el pueblo shuts it down: no school, no work, no shopping.”
“Starting there really sends a message that we're here,” said Kristal Romero, press secretary for the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. “We're standing with this community, and if you take on one of us, you take on all of us.”
May Day’s history in LA
May Day, sometimes called International Workers' Day, started after an 1886 strike tied to the fight for an eight-hour work day. The protest turned violent after police attacked workers. In the 1990s, L.A. organizers started to connect the labor movement with advocacy for immigrant rights.
Romero said the Federation has offered training on de-escalation, conflict resolution and non-violent protests and that hundreds of people will act as “peacekeepers” during Friday’s rally and march.
“ A lot of times, folks can get caught in echo chambers and it may really feel hopeless,” Romero said. “The big point of these events is to inspire hope to show people we're all here, we're all fighting for the same thing.”
