It could become known as Late Night...

It could become known as Late Night with the Santa Monica City Council.

Keeping up with such bright-lights neighbors as Beverly Hills and West Hollywood, Santa Monica will begin televising its council meetings tonight on Century Cable’s Channel 16--but only on condition that camera crews avoid close-ups of sleeping or frolicking council members.

Not that the city’s lawmaker have short attention spans. It’s just that their contentious meetings commonly drag on from 7:30 p.m. until 1 a.m.--or, in one instance--until 5 a.m.

Local video shops are already making room on their shelves.

Karen Carter of Sylmar gets around. Monday, she took a 30-minute helicopter ride over the Los Angeles Basin. When she moved west from Missouri, she recalled, she took a stagecoach. Of course, the latter trip was a while ago inasmuch as she’s 103.

Nevertheless, she was the junior guest aboard KNX Newsradio’s helicopter. Another passenger was Lottie Hicks, a 104-year-old Alhambran.

The rides were organized by the American Centenarian Committee, a senior citizens group. Hicks was also delighted by her chopper ride, though not quite as stunned by the experience. After all, she took a blimp ride at 102.

It isn’t often you see people dancing in all four lanes of the northbound San Diego Freeway.

But that was the case in the Westminster area Easter night after Southern Californians heading home found that the freeway had been shut down. A traffic accident had left power lines draped over the lanes.

The resulting traffic jam, which extended more than 12 miles, turned into a modified block party.

“Get out and play,” a father was overheard telling his children. “It’s the only time you’ll ever be able to say you played on a freeway.”

Several drivers sought out cars with cellular phones. When a Pasadena woman told one man that she didn’t have a car phone, he then asked, “Well, how about a cigarette?”

The Easter Bunny at the photo booth of the Westside Pavilion mall had to keep adjusting his head, an oddity that was not lost on Elizabeth Stein, 4.

After her visit was over, Elizabeth told her mother in shocked tones:

“It wasn’t the Easter Bunny. It was a man in a costume. I saw his hair.”