The Brief

Los Angeles residents have a lot of questions about a controversial plan to build a gondola connecting Union Station in downtown to Dodger Stadium.

California State Parks hosted a virtual meeting on Tuesday night to go over a proposed amendment to the plan that would allow it to be built over L.A. State Historic Park, which opponents have argued would threaten the 32-acre green space.

Alex Stehl, the deputy director of planning at State Parks, clarified during the meeting that the amendment is not a done deal.

“As we move through this process, we're going to be looking at whether or not it's feasible for this project to be in the park, and how would it be feasible,” she said.

What would the gondola do exactly?

The project, officially named LA Art, would connect the stadium, station, and Elysian Park.

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Courtesy L.A. Metro

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It would include three stations — one near El Pueblo, a Chinatown / State Park station, and another at Dodger Stadium. Three towers and a junction would also need to be built, as well as a system of cables and cabins.

Officials said it would provide access to surrounding communities, including Chinatown, Mission Junction, and Solano Canyon. It would operate daily, with the roughly 1 mile ride taking 7 minutes each way.

“LA ART would provide safe, zero emission, environmentally friendly, and high-capacity transit connectivity, reducing greenhouse gas emissions as a result of reduced vehicular congestion in and around Dodger Stadium and on neighborhood streets, arterial roadways, and freeways,” according to a presentation during the meeting.

Most of the park wouldn’t be beneath the project, which would be along the westernmost edge. The cabins would soar anywhere from 26 to 53 feet over the area.

Questions from residents

The meeting was translated into five languages, including Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin, and Taishanese.

All of the questions and comments were sent directly to the moderators, and members of the public were not identified or able to share their thoughts verbally.

Some people asked about access to the park, given that it's currently free to visit. Stehl said they don’t intend to change that.

“People would still be able to access this park as they do now,” she said. “Of course, depending on things like special events or other things happening in the area, which sometimes does close off sections of the park, but there's no intent to limit access to the park.”

One person expressed concerns about the visual impact of the gondola and all its infrastructure, which Stehl said would be taken into account throughout the General Plan Amendment process.

Others asked if officials will be gathering information on the losses and risks to the park, and Stehl confirmed they are.

Another asked who will be responsible for operating and maintaining the gondola, such as the city or a private company. Stehl said that’s part of what’s going to be discussed over the next year, and into the future should they move forward.

What is a general plan? Why does it matter?

The General Plan accounts for conceptual goals and guidelines for long-term land use, management, and operations of the park, among others.

The first step is to collect input from the public, which is where we are now.

Officials will then develop amendment options, present the draft plan to the public for their feedback, and then submit the final draft to the State Park and Recreation Commission for its consideration.

The process will involve public outreach, and there will be multiple opportunities for people to comment and share their input, officials said.

Once that’s completed, the project will need several approvals and agreements from State Parks.

Those include a right of entry permit to construct a gondola station in the park, and real property agreements for aerial rights requirements. It’ll also need operational agreements for day to day operations such as hours, security, and programming.

How you can stay up to date

Any and all feedback received by Dec. 15 will be considered as the process moves forward.

You can do that through the General Plan Amendment website here, or email lastatehistoricparkgpa@parks.ca.gov.

You can also share your thoughts via mail by sending it to:

The PDF form is available in English, Spanish, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese.

And you sign up for the email list here.

On Monday, 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 Dec. 31.)

The iconic bar, which shuttered in 2024 after a 15-year run, holds a special place in the hearts of 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 Monday 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 6-10 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.