The Brief

There will be major closures along the 110 freeway this weekend, including an overnight shutdown in both directions between the 10 interchange and Exposition Boulevard.

Traffic will be impacted starting Friday night through Sunday. City and transportation officials are encouraging people to use public transit, plan ahead, or simply avoid the downtown L.A. area.

The closures will allow Caltrans crews to demolish a damaged pedestrian bridge.

Friday 

The work begins Friday night to remove the portion of the bridge over Adams Boulevard.

Crews will start closing all of the on-ramps to the southbound 110 freeway, as well as the eastbound and westbound connectors from the 10 freeway, as early as 7 p.m., Yang said.

The southbound 110 freeway will be limited to one lane between the 10 freeway and Exposition Boulevard as of 11 p.m., and they will remain closed until around 7 or 8 a.m. Saturday morning.

Drivers will still be able to access the express lane during this time, which starts south of the closures.

Saturday

“Saturday night is when you should expect the most significant traffic impacts,” Yang said.

All southbound lanes between the 10 freeway and Exposition Boulevard will be fully closed, as will the northbound lanes between Washington Boulevard and Adams Boulevard.

Crews are expected to begin shutting down on-ramps and connectors as early as 9 p.m., with the full freeway closures starting at 11 p.m.

Sunday 

All lanes are expected to reopen by 8 a.m. Sunday.

The southbound off-ramp to Adams Boulevard, which will be closed all weekend, is expected to reopen by 8 p.m. Sunday.

However, as with any construction project, the schedule could change.

Detours

If you are driving on the 110 freeway during these closures, you will be diverted onto local roads with posted detour signs.

Laura Rubio-Cornejo, the general manager of LADOT, said more than 100 traffic officers and supervisors will be out in the streets this weekend to assist with any congestion or safety concerns.

She said traffic engineers will also be continually monitoring the conditions and making adjustments as needed.

Northbound detour

Caltrans detour map for the northbound 110 freeway closures this weekend.

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Caltrans

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Southbound detour

Caltrans detour maps for the southbound 110 freeway closures this weekend.

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Caltrans

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If you are traveling from the 110 northbound to either the 10 east or the 10 west, you should exit at Adams Boulevard. You’ll then take Adams Boulevard to Hoover Street, and enter the 10 freeway from there.

If you’re traveling northbound on the 110 freeway and want to continue past the closure, you should also exit at Adams Boulevard. You’ll take that north to Figueroa Street, and head to Washington Boulevard. You’ll be able to reenter the 110 north at the interchange.

If you’re heading southbound on the 110 freeway, you’ll still be able to connect to the eastbound and westbound 10 freeway through the interchange.

If you need to continue southbound past the closure, you should transfer to the eastbound 10 freeway and exit on Hill Street. Head southbound on Hill Street until you reach Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard, you’ll be able to get back on the 110 freeway near the intersection with Flower Street.

If you’re heading from the westside of the city on the eastbound 10 freeway and need to get onto the southbound 110 freeway, exit at Hoover Street. Take Hoover Street south to Jefferson Boulevard, and then take Jefferson Boulevard east until you hit Flower Street. You’ll follow Flower Street to Exposition Boulevard and get on the southbound 110 freeway there.

Finally, if you’re traveling from the east side of the city on the westbound 10 freeway and need to transfer to the southbound 110 freeway, exit at the interchange to Pico Boulevard. Take Pico Boulevard east until Flower Street, and then head down to Exposition Boulevard to get on the southbound 110 freeway.

Randall Winston, the city’s deputy mayor of infrastructure, said Caltrans has already posted guidance signs that are visible from nearby major highways.

“Our message is clear — plan ahead, and follow the guidance on the electronic signs posted on the freeways,” said Randall Winston, the city’s deputy mayor of infrastructure.

Metro

Jennifer Vides, the chief customer experience officer for LA Metro, encouraged people to use public transit if they need to get in and around downtown this weekend.

The rail lines will run until around 12:30 a.m., and service starts back up again at 4 a.m.

The bus lines, including line 45 on Broadway and line two on Alvarado Street, operate 24 hours a day in the downtown and central parts of the city.

The J line, also known as the silver line, also operates around the clock and can connect you from the South Bay to downtown L.A. and El Monte.

However, some Metro bus services will also have to detour around the closures, including the J line, 910, and the Disneyland 460. Vides recommends giving yourself extra time if you need to take any of those lines.

You can also always check metro.net for the most up-to-date schedules.

“We've proved previously that we can manage freeway closures effectively in Los Angeles County, and let's do it again this weekend,” Vides said.

Why closures?

John Yang, the deputy district director for construction with Caltrans District 7, said that a pedestrian bridge at 21st Street needs to be demolished.

The bridge has been out of commission for a couple of decades, but Yang said it’s been damaged since it was hit by a crane in 2020.

Despite being safe to stand on, the bridge was marked for demolition since. Yang said that closing parts of the freeway is the only way to bring it down safely.

Crews will be covering lanes with about 2 to 4 feet of dirt to protect the lanes below, he said, and the bridge will be taken apart piece by piece.

Most of the closures will be contained to the overnight hours when there are fewer people on the road, but Yang added that this area of L.A. sees a lot of traffic all hours of the day.

Next Monday December 15, Los Angeles travels back in time. Well, sort of.

The Varnish, the famed speakeasy hidden behind a secret door at the back of Cole’s French Dip, will be reconstituted for one night only as part of a special pop-up at Firstborn in Chinatown.

(Meanwhile, Cole's itself will be open through the holiday season, with its last night of regular service planned for December 31.)

The iconic bar, which shuttered in 2024 after a 15-year run, holds a special place for many Angelenos, who believe it's where L.A.’s modern cocktail revival truly began. The event reunites three bartenders who all came up through The Varnish’s famously exacting school of cocktail-making. Kenzo Han (recently named Esquire’s Bartender of the Year) cut his teeth there before moving into roles that established him as one of L.A.’s most respected classic-cocktail technicians. Wolf Alexander and Miles Caballes emerged from the same pipeline.

One night only

Kenzo Han, bar director at Firstborn and former Varnish bartender, is hosting two fellow Varnish alumni for the Dec. 15 pop-up.

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Ron De Angelis

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Han is now Firstborn’s bar director, where he leads a tight, classics-leaning bar program. The restaurant sits inside Mandarin Plaza, where chef Anthony Wang turns out playful comfort dishes with Chinese and American influences. It’s a lively, unfussy neighborhood hangout just off Broadway, surrounded by neon, noodle shops, and family-style restaurants.

The Varnish connection

All three bartenders trace their lineage back to Sasha Petraske, who, in 2009, co-founded The Varnish with Eric Alperin and Cedd Moses, the owner of Cole’s French Dip.

Petraske traded '90s flash for pre-Prohibition craft: fresh citrus over sour mix, precise technique over bottle tricks, elevating cocktails from party fuel to art form.

Miles Caballes brings his Varnish training back to the bar for one night.

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Courtesy Firstborn

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Wolf Alexander, another Varnish alum, demonstrates the precise technique that defined the speakeasy's approach.

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Courtesy Firstborn

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The Varnish became the city’s clearest expression of Petraske’s cocktail philosophy, where his playbook of precision, restraint, and quiet hospitality took root on the West Coast. (Petraske passed in 2015).

Han, Alexander, and Caballes all trained in that environment, absorbing the Petraske rules of clean builds, tight technique, and no-nonsense cocktails.

What to expect

For one night only, from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., the trio will channel that tradition through a Varnish-style menu: curated classics only, no custom builds, with all cocktails priced at $20. Two featured drinks nod directly to the bar's lineage. The Spring Blossom — created at The Varnish — combines mezcal, French aperitifs including Suze and Lillet Blanc, mole bitters and a grapefruit twist. Death & Taxes features scotch, gin, sweet vermouth, Benedictine (a herbal liqueur), Angostura and orange bitters, finished with a lemon twist.

On the food side, chef Anthony Wang is reviving his cult-favorite Blood Orange Chicken Sando ($20), served with radicchio, alongside a limited run of his Shanghainese-style McRib ($24) — a playful, sweet-and-sour riff built around tender ribs and “all the stuff” that made the original such a guilty pleasure.

The blood orange chicken sandwich at Firstborn from Chef Anthony Wang.

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Ron De Angelis

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Expect a casual, walk-in-only atmosphere where guests can grab a seat at the bar and let the cocktail nostalgia wash over them.

Whether you were a Varnish regular or only heard the stories, this pop-up is a rare chance to see that style alive again — familiar faces, bespoke cocktails, and the kind of muscle-memory bartending that defined an era of L.A. drinking culture. For newer drinkers, it’s a glimpse of the cocktail philosophy that shaped the city as we know it.

It’ll likely get busy early, and the food specials may run out fast — but that’s part of the charm. The Varnish’s legacy has always been about small rooms, sharp precision, and moments you catch only if you’re paying attention.

In the city of Los Angeles, neighbors or homeowner groups who choose to fight approvals of new housing are required to pay a fee when filing an appeal.

Right now, that fee is $178 — about 1% of the amount the city says it costs to process the appeal. But that fee soon will go up.

On Wednesday, the L.A. City Council voted to increase the fee to $229 but rejected a proposal by the city administrative officer that would have raised the cost for appellants to more than $22,800, or 100% of the cost.

Some advocates for making housing easier to build argued the city should have adopted the higher fee.

“Appeals of approved projects create delays that make it harder to build housing and disincentivize future housing from being proposed,” said Jacob Pierce, a policy associate with the group Abundant Housing L.A.

At a time when L.A.’s budget is strained, Pierce said, if someone thinks a project was wrongly approved, “They should put their money where their mouth is and pay the full fee."

The City Council unanimously approved another new fee structure put forward by the city’s Planning Department.

While fees will remain relatively low for housing project opponents, developers will have to pay $22,453 to appeal projects that previously had been denied.

A November report from the city administrative officer said setting fees higher to recover the full cost of processing would have aligned with the city’s financial policies. Generally, fees are set higher when applicants are asking for a service that benefits them alone.

“When a service or activity benefits the public at large, there is generally little to no recommended fee amount,” the report said.

Pierce said he hoped a City Council committee would reconsider the higher fee proposal next year. With the city falling far short of its goal to create nearly a half-million new homes by 2029, he said the city needs to discourage obstruction of new housing.

“Slowing down the construction of housing is expensive for all of us,” Pierce said.

Los Angeles could become the first city in the U.S. to ban ink cartridges that can be used only once.

The L.A. City Council unanimously voted Wednesday to approve the creation of an ordinance that prohibits their sale. The move comes after more than a year of debate over the terms.

Why the potential ban

This builds upon the city’s effort to reach zero waste, including phasing out single-use plastics. You’re likely familiar with some of those efforts — such as only getting plastic foodware by request and banning single-use carryout bags at stores. Multiple plastic bans have been suggested, like for single-use vapes and bag clips, but now it’s ink’s turn.

The cartridges are tough to dispose of because of the plastic, metal and chemicals inside, according to the city. They’re also classified as regulated waste in the state because they can leach toxic substances into the environment, such as volatile organic compounds and heavy metals.

That poses a problem. L.A.’s curbside recycling program can’t recycle the cartridges, and while its hazardous waste program can take them, a significant portion end up in landfills.

Major printer manufacturers and some ink retailers have take-back programs for used cartridges so they can get refilled. However, L.A. Sanitation says there are certain single-use cartridges that don’t have recovery programs. These are usually cartridges that work with a printer but aren’t name brand.

How outlawing them could work

LASAN has spent months figuring out what a ban would cover — and it hasn’t been without pushback. The city’s energy and environment committee pressed the department back in September on how effective a ban would be.

Ultimately, the committee moved it forward with a promise that LASAN would come back with more details, including environmental groups’ stance, concrete data to back up the need and a public education plan.

The department’s current recommendation is that the ordinance should prohibit retail and online establishments from selling any single-use ink cartridge, whether sold separately or with a printer, to people in the city. Retailers that don’t follow the rules would get fined.

So what does single-use mean here? The ban would affect a printer cartridge that:

• is not collected or recovered through a take-back program
• cannot be remanufactured, refilled or reused
• infringes upon intellectual property rights or violates any applicable local, state or federal law

Any cartridges that meet one of these points would fall under the ban, though you still could get them outside L.A.

The proposed ordinance will go to the committee first while LASAN works on a public education plan.

If it ends up getting approved by the full council, the ban likely would go into full effect 12 months later.