Bustle on Ventura Boulevard Returns as Curfew Is Lifted

Ventura Boulevard, which looked like the main street of a ghost town at times on recent nights, slowly returned to business as usual when the city’s riot curfew was lifted Monday evening.

Pedestrians meandered along the sidewalk. Once-shuttered stores displayed their wares. And waitresses, idled for a weekend, hustled from table to table as San Fernando Valley residents headed out for a night on the town for the first time since the curfew was imposed last Thursday.

“People were cooped up and they just want to get out,” said Lisa Brucker, a waitress at Manhattan Coolers restaurant in Sherman Oaks.

Indeed, all along the boulevard Monday night, merchants, pedestrians and diners said it was good to get out again.

“You begin to feel like a prisoner in your own home,” said Lissa Mardis of Van Nuys as she paid for her dinner at Jerry’s Deli in Encino. “It’s kind of a problem having nothing open. You definitely know what it feels like to have your freedom restricted.”

But some commented that life along the boulevard was still slow--even for a Monday night, which is often the quietest time of the week.

“Generally people are always out here shmoozing,” said Gilbert Coronel of Arleta, who stopped at Tower Records in Sherman Oaks to buy some music. “It’s nothing like that now.”

And for some, Monday’s return to the routine actually hurt one business. Waitresses at Jerry’s Deli, one of the few restaurants to remain open during the curfew, said they made about double the normal amount of tips on those nights.

“We were reeaaaally busy,” said waitress Rachel Koch of Canoga Park.

For Jay Epstein-Lev and Diane Benson, Monday was the first chance to go for an evening walk, missed during the curfew.

“It’s good to be back out on the street,” Epstein-Lev said. “I just stayed home and read.”

He was glad to see life returning to normal in the city, but hastened to add that there was something brewing on the next block.

“There are a lot of police and people milling around,” he said.

It was a movie shoot--a harbinger of a normal night to come.