The Brief

Los Angeles police arrested and cited a street safety activist on Sunday as he painted DIY crosswalks in Westwood with community members.

“I was like, ‘Hey, look, we don't have a permit. We're protesting for safer streets and a more effective government,’” Jonathan Hale said about his interaction with officers. “They were not down with that.”

Hale made headlines earlier this year when he led efforts to paint crosswalks around Stoner Park and at a Koreatown intersection where an RV driver hit and killed 9-year-old Nadir Gavarrete in July.

Hale and volunteers with a group he founded called People’s Vision Zero initially planned to work at the intersection of Wilkins and Midvale avenues. State data show a car hit and injured a 35-year-old man at that intersection in November 2020. There were too many potholes, Hale said, making painting there “unfeasible.” Instead, the group focused on the corner immediately adjacent at Wilkins and Kelton avenues.

According to a Los Angeles Police Department spokesperson, “a vandalism radio call was generated” around 11 a.m. that described “approximately 7 suspects were painting what appeared to be a fake crosswalk pretending to be city workers.”

Hale said the group had painted two of four total crosswalks and were working on the third when officers approached, asked him for a permit and eventually cited him for misdemeanor vandalism.

Hale said he made it clear to the officer questioning him, as well as in flyers and posters he distributed locally earlier in the week, that People’s Vision Zero is an “unofficial group painting an unpermitted crosswalk.”

“ I make it very clear I’m not a city employee,” Hale said.

People's Vision Zero painted two of four crosswalks at the corner before police showed up.

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Jonathan Hale

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A video from People’s Vision Zero shows an officer speaking to Hale and people watching him get arrested.

“You’re vandalizing city property without a permit,” the officer says in the video. “So I’m gonna ask y’all nicely — y’all can record all you want — but back up or I will take everyone to jail.”

Hale said he is due in court on Jan. 5.

In addition to the local outreach before painting the crosswalk, Hale submitted a 311 ticket on Oct. 7 requesting the city install a marked crosswalk at the Midvale intersection and emailed the mayor’s office about People’s Vision Zero’s planned action on Dec. 1.

Local councilmember responds

Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky represents the Westwood area.

In a statement, her spokesperson, Leo Daube, pointed to how DIY crosswalks present liability concerns for the city and need to be reviewed for "ADA access, visibility, and safety."

Daube added that Yaroslavsky recognizes the need for expedited delivery of safety improvements to L.A. streets and could see "volunteers supporting this work in a safe and legal way in the future."

While not involved with the incident, Daube said the office would "prefer enforcement focused on dangerous driving and speeding, which put residents at risk every day.”

Hale has been transparent with the mayor’s office

Hale met with the mayor’s office in September and said they discussed policy proposals that would address the city’s slow pace toward making streets in L.A. safer, the central frustration behind community-led campaigns like People’s Vision Zero.

According to correspondence shared with LAist, the mayor’s office has only responded once to Hale’s emails since the September meeting.

“While we share your goals, all roadway markings, including crosswalks, must comply with local, state, and federal standards to ensure consistency and minimize risk,” an Oct. 10 email from the mayor’s office states. “Though we can’t approve of or endorse unsanctioned roadway alterations, we welcome collaboration to advance safety initiatives.”

Nothing has materialized so far, Hale said, so his group has continued to paint crosswalks at certain intersections where pedestrians have been hit by vehicles. Hale emails the mayor’s office before each “paint party,” the term People’s Vision Zero uses to describe DIY crosswalk painting events, according to messages reviewed by LAist.

In the Dec. 1 email he sent about the Westwood crosswalk, Hale said People’s Vision Zero would stop painting crosswalks if the mayor’s office either “publicly and unequivocally condemns our actions” or “demonstrates urgency in ending traffic violence by taking tangible steps to make our streets safer.”

In a statement to LAist about Hale’s arrest, the mayor’s office said that “despite communication about City, State, and Federal laws and parameters, Jonathan has chosen to continue to pursue his own course of action.”

Where is the city’s Vision Zero program?

In the spring, an audit covering the first seven years of L.A.’s Vision Zero program found that a lack of political will and poor coordination hampered the city’s failed goal of reaching zero traffic deaths by 2025.

Since then, local leaders have been considering a suite of recommendations to revamp the program.

Last week, members of L.A. City Council’s budget committee largely approved the recommendations, but also criticized the city’s slow pace of implementing programs, such as speed safety cameras, that have proven to be effective in addressing traffic violence.

“I'm just sort of speaking for myself, but like almost every week someone's hit by a car and killed, it feels like, in our district,” Yaroslavsky said at the Dec. 2 meeting.

In a presentation to the committee, staff from the City Administrative Office and L.A.’s Department of Transportation said pedestrian fatalities in the city have increased nearly 36% since 2021, but that there’s been a decrease in vehicle-and-vehicle crashes.

“It is essentially getting safer to drive in L.A., and similar story across the country, but it is getting less safe to be a pedestrian,” Chris Rider, a city transportation engineer, said during the meeting.

Lawmakers on Thursday killed a controversial plan that could have allowed grizzly bears to one day return to California.

The Assembly Appropriations Committee spiked Inglewood Democratic Sen. Laura Richardson’s Senate Bill 1305. The measure would have tasked the California Department of Fish and Wildlife with creating a “roadmap that evaluates whether, and under what conditions, reintroduction of the grizzly bear is feasible and advisable.”

As is typical with the Legislature’s appropriations committees, lawmakers didn’t discuss the bill; nor did they take public testimony before the committee’s chairperson, Democratic Assemblymember Buffy Wicks of Oakland, announced the decision.

Wicks later told reporters that before intentionally reintroducing grizzly bears, the state must figure out how humans can best coexist with predatory wildlife. She pointed to the controversial return of gray wolves to California and the subsequent loss of cattle.

“The state needs to really invest in how we are actually addressing and dealing with those conflicts,” she said.

Grizzlies once lived across most of California. As many as 10,000 may have roamed before the Gold Rush. They were so prevalent that when California settlers tried to form their own nation, they called it the Bear Flag Republic. A grizzly bear is memorialized on California’s flag.

Settlers systematically exterminated the animals. They were gone by the 1920s, leaving the smaller black bear as California’s only surviving native bear species.

Two Native American tribes consponsored the bill, and several animal welfare and environmental groups supported it. They argued that bringing the second largest land predator back to America’s most populated state would right an ecological wrong and help restore California’s degraded ecosystem.

Opponents included ranchers, hunting associations and rural communities. They argued California is far too populated with people to sustain another apex predator. Rural communities are already overwhelmed with conflicts with mountain lions, black bears and wolves that attack livestock and wander into their towns, opponents said.

The measure set aside no funding for the study, but it allowed for a future Legislature or an outside group to do so.

Yue Stella Yu contributed reporting.

Irvine opened a new pedestrian bridge this week that lets you pedal, scoot, or walk over the 5 Freeway.

I threw my bike in the car and went to check it out.

I parked at Cypress Community Park in Irvine and was soon biking over the 5. The bridge is only for pedestrians, bikes, and scooters — so no cars to worry about.

A new bridge in Irvine opened this week. It stretches across the 5 Freeway and connects to other trails in the city.

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The bridge, which opened on Aug. 11, is a key link in Orange County’s network of trails that can take cyclists and pedestrians all the way from the hills to the Pacific Ocean.

“It looks like they nailed it. This is great," said James Connolly, who was on a scouting trip from his home in Costa Mesa.

“ I wanna take my e-board, which can go about 30 miles, and go all the way to here and then turn around and go back, you know? It looks like that's feasible now," he continued.

The new bridge in Irvine opened this week.

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Sadia Kahn was trying to keep up with her two young boys, who were on scooters.

“ It's our first time here. We've been watching the construction for a while, so yeah, we're excited," she said.

Khan said she has come to really appreciate Irvine's network of parks and trails.

“Prior to having kids, it would just give me like the heebie-jeebies by how like manicured it is and then you have kids and you're like, "Oh, I get the hype," she said. "We've drank the Kool-Aid is what I'm trying to say.” 

There’re plenty of skate parks in the region — skateboarding, after all, got its start in Southern California. But a skate park of another kind has risen on the banks of the L.A. River.

It’s for fingerboarding.

The L.A. River Fingerboard Skatepark is four feet tall and sits atop a bank of dirt barriers installed by the Army Corps of Engineers about a decade ago to control floods.

The view from the back end of the L.A. River Fingerboard Skatepark.

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If you know, you know

There’s no exact address, finding it for yourself is part of the experience.

A group photo of fingerboarders at the the L.A. River Fingerboard Skatepark.

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Ryan Diaz

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“ The whole purpose of it is for you to get out and to use your brain and to discover the world, it just makes things fun,” said Ryan Diaz, who manages social media accounts dedicated to the fingerboard skatepark.

No one knows who built it or when it was built, but videos of people doing tricks on miniature ramps and rails started showing up on social media in March.

Diaz instantly recognized the location and decided to check it out. At that time, it was six by six feet — that’s before he started to add to it.

Others joined in and Diaz began documenting the expansion.

The park is about 90 feet long.

“Everyone does say if it wasn't for me, none of this would be happening,” Diaz said. “I was just happy to motivate people, bring out their creativity.”

Skate therapy

Levi Hernandez and his fingerboard.

Levi Hernandez performs a trick with his fingerboard.

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Levi Hernandez shows off his fingerboard.

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Levi Hernandez is from El Monte. It was his fourth time visiting on a recent Wednesday in July, but he’s been fingerboarding for nearly a decade, including at local events like ShredderMania.

He said he’s learning something new at the park.

“ It actually almost feels like real skateboarding in a way," Hernandez said. "Where your fingers end up sliding and where you're popping, it's just a lot of practice.”

Jimmy Tran of Chinatown is a regular that stops by the park on his way home from work every day. He used to skateboard – the real kind – regularly but had to stop after a bad injury.

Jimmy Tran performs a trick with his fingerboard.

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“ I could do the same tricks as skateboarding, but I don't have to get hurt at all, honestly. And I still have the satisfaction of landing a really clean trick,” Tran said.

Tran says it’s a place he can relax, be himself, and feel like a kid again.

Saturdays are for building

Gilbert Medrano (left) and Ryan Diaz (right) co-manages the park.

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Ryan Diaz

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Build days to expand the park are on Saturdays.

“We have kids that come from the neighborhood, and we teach them how to pour concrete and stuff like that, kind of like a big brother role,” Diaz said.

Besides the usual skatepark obstacles like ramps and rails, the crew also add art, including a large “LA” sign in Dodger Blue and requisite graffiti like the shark Diaz painted as a tribute to Jaws on a quarter pipe ramp.

Darren Mojica performs a trick on the quarter pipe ramp.

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Diaz’s dream is for the park to be recognized by the city as a local landmark.

“I want the spot to last, and for years to come for people to come and visit,” Diaz said.

Saturday build days include decorating the park with graffiti and art.

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A hardware store isn't where you’d expect to find a drawing class, a matcha pop-up or plant sales. Unless you're at Anzen Hardware, an 80-year-old staple that nearly disappeared from Little Tokyo in 2023.

The business reopened in November, and it’s been trying to find its groove in a neighborhood where legacy businesses are moving out — such as Suehiro Cafe and Rafu Shimpo — while navigating a different world from when it first opened.

“We're noticing the need for hardware tools is declining,” said Philip Hirose.

Jo Ann Maehara Hirose, along with her son Philip Hirose, are the new owners of Anzen Hardware. They are also the daughter and grandson of the founder.

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Philip Hirose is bringing new programming, from matcha pop-ups to drawing classes, to the reopened Anzen.

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Hirose and his mom, Jo Ann Maehara Hirose, are the new owners — the grandson and daughter of the founder. With the help of trusted family friend Rockett Ito Wong, Anzen is carrying on its legacy as it becomes something new.

"None of the three of us have that much experience with running retail stores," said Wong, a college student. "It's been quite a bit of trial and error."

Eight decades on First Street

Tsutomu Maehara opened Anzen Hotel Supply, a precursor to Anzen Hardware, after being incarcerated at Tule Lake during World War II.

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Tsutomu Maehara — Jo Ann Maehara Hirose’s father — settled in Los Angeles after being incarcerated at Tule Lake during World War II.

In 1946, he founded Anzen Hotel Supply on First Street to sell provisions to nearby single-room hotels.

Anzen Hardware from its early days in Little Tokyo.

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"As soon as I could hold a broom, we were sweeping the streets or the sidewalks outside," Maehara Hirose said.

Anzen eventually pivoted to selling American hardware and imported Japanese tools and goods — including bamboo garden rakes and handcrafted knives from a company that once made samurai swords.

Twenty-year-old Rockett Ito Wong is a longtime family friend and runs the floor.

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“It's always a discovery,” said Mike Okamura, president of the Little Tokyo Historical Society and a patron since Maehara was behind the cash register.

Maehara Hirose remembered Anzen imported one of the first rice cookers from Japan. “A National. That one-button one,” she said. “They were flying off the shelves.”

These days, tariffs are making it harder to keep and find suppliers. Still, Wong has just brought in a shipment of knives and chisels.

“I don't even think it's been a question that we would source any of this stuff not from Japan,” he said.

The shop still sharpens knives. In fact, Wong is the guy responsible for the job.

A reluctant homecoming

In 2023, then-owner Nori Takatani, a distant relative of Maehara who had worked at Anzen since he was a teen, put the store up for sale. He was in ill health and asked Maehara Hirose and her husband to take over.

She was hesitant, having opened the restaurant Azay several years earlier. She worried about taking on a second business. Besides, there were two prospective buyers, both invested in preserving Anzen's legacy.

But one day, Takatani told her the deals fell through because the landlord was jacking up rent.

Wong was able to find a new supplier from Japan for an order of new wood chisels.

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“You gotta buy it,” he told her.

Anzen Hardware returned two years later at one of its previous locations, 200 E. First Street.

“It was great news and great joy,” Okamura said when the community found out who the new owners were.

More than a hardware store 

On a July evening, about a dozen people, pencils and paper in hand, were at Anzen to learn how to draw.

Their subjects were Patty and Carrie — friends in their 70s — who ended up regaling the participants, some decades younger, with stories of their lives and community advocacy work.

The “Memory Capsule Drawing” class was taught by Kris Chau, an artist and loyal patron. She still brings in the knife she bought a decade ago for sharpening.

In July, Philip and artist Kris Chau organized a drawing class at Anzen Hardware. The models were two 70-something community activists.

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Kris Chau

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Courtesy Kris Chau

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She said she was inspired to start the drawing class after Hirose said he was noticing that some elders were losing confidence and purpose.

"Even though you could see the light within Carrie and Patty, they were like, 'Why would anybody wanna draw us?'" Chau said. "The young students were just, like, in tears at the end of class."

That, along with the store’s matcha pop-ups, plant sales and artist collaborations, may just be what a legacy neighborhood business needs to survive.

“Philip [Hirose] is taking it forward, but keeping in mind the history and paying tribute to it,” said Okamura, who has been helping out at both Anzen and Azay since he retired as a banker.

“I see the old Anzen — the same counters and some of the hardware too,” he continued. “But then I see other things — the programming inside the store, which has never been done before.”