Santa Monica Street Sign Directs Large Vehicles to Park in Next-Door Venice Instead
Neighborhood forum Yo! Venice has riled up some longstanding anti-Santa Monica sentiments today with a photo of a "No Parking" notice at the corner of Ozone Avenue and Seventh Street (see right).
Yo! Venice Don't even think about it.
Bret, the forum's administrator, notes that the signage was posted this morning "right on the border of Venice and SM ... pointed toward Venice of course."
It's a ground-level reminder of the seemingly eternal battle between Santa Monica and Venice over sky traffic:
The latter is offended that the (mostly private) planes taking off from Santa Monica Airport opt for a convenient flight path right above Venice, instead of disturbing the peace and quiet of its own residents.
Exactly one year ago, Venetians, and anti-air pollution heads in general, held a candlelight vigil while the airport was closed for routine maintenance, for to "celebrate the peace that is possible when we're free of airport pollution and noise."
So much for that. And now, on the vigil's anniversary, Santa Monica dumps its cumbersome RVs/oversized vehicles onto Venice, to boot.
Commenter SaltWater thinks Venice is just jealous:
The lesson here kids is that SM and the people who live there and govern it have there *#!%$! together way more than the sorry-ass leaders of LA/Venice. I mean c'mon, let's be honest- SM isn't a bad neighbor. LA/Venice is the bad neighbor.
Santa Monica is also well aware that Venice, having such a stubborn core of homeless and personal-freedom advocates (though that could be changing, as the gentry begin to outnumber the funky), could never post similar restrictions without major outcry.
So city officials are obviously taking advantage of Venice's big heart -- and L.A. City Hall's distracted inadequacy -- to make SaMo even more spick and span (read: stupid boring) than it already is. Yo! Venice commenter AmorosoNate sees that opportunistic us versus them mentality as the real wrong in this situation:
"... The city of Santa Monica "aggressively" and "intentionally" pushes their problems on others. It's especially offensive when Santa Monica's own short-sighted policies created the problem in the first place. I can't blame them, they're acting in their own self interest, but there are clear and obvious repercussions for neighboring communities and Santa Monica doesn't seem to care enough to change their behavior."
Ironically, just this morning, a few German friends of ours needed a place to park their RV. Seeing as permit parking starts on our Santa Monica street at 8 a.m., we just told them to drive a few streets over to Venice, where rigs are more welcome than hybrids at Whole Foods.
Looks like the door may have slammed them on their way out.
[@simone_electra/swilson@laweekly.com]
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