Limits on Boardwalk Stalls Spur a Grass-Roots Protest

For 15 years, Jack Herer has been telling anyone who will listen that hemp is “the most important thing in the world. . . . Sails, flags, maps, newspapers--they’re all made from hemp, which is the same thing as marijuana.”

Who knows? Maybe there is even a little ganja in the paper used to produce a new plan that limits the spaces and operating hours of groups such as Herer’s--HEMP, or Help End Marijuana Prohibition--that set up their shops on the Venice boardwalk.

Under a pilot project approved by the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks, booths along Oceanfront Walk will be subject to a variety of restrictions--among them, that they can be no longer than six feet. Officials contend that the booths are getting so big that they block emergency traffic.

That burns Herer, whose, uh, grass-roots organization hands out literature and merchandise every day from a table on the boardwalk.

“They’re just trying to upscale (the beach),” Herer said. “It’s the last place I know of in Los Angeles where people can take their families and walk in a parade atmosphere.”

“Naturally, everyone in the community is very upset about this,” said Jerry Rubin, whose Los Angeles Alliance for Survival, a nonprofit peace group, also hands out literature. “It’s unfair, unnecessary and restrictive. It destroys the free spirit of Venice Beach.”

Niki Tennant, an aide to Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, said the pilot program, which began May 30, will continue through September. City park rangers will first warn violators, then start ticketing later in the summer, she said. The City Council may make the program permanent.

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TALKING TRASH: No, the “D” in D-day does not stand for Dumpster.

Someone should tell that to the trash haulers who stormed a West Hollywood City Council meeting Monday on the 50th anniversary of the Normandy invasion. Waving miniature American flags and invoking everyone from Thomas Jefferson to Henry Kissinger, haulers and their supporters protested a plan to have one company collect all trash in the city.

That would cut truck traffic and help coordinate recycling efforts, the city contends. But it also could mean lost business for the more than 15 other haulers serving many apartments and businesses, plus higher prices for a third of city residents and businesses.

Full of D-day fervor, opponents cast the plan as an unpatriotic assault on Americans’ fundamental right to choose . . . their own trash hauler.

The proposal would create a “legal monopoly that goes against the American way,” said attorney Tim Agajanian, representing a haulers group. “That’s not what we fought D-day for.”

Unmoved, the council approved the idea. Angry opponents vowed to take their offensive to a second front: the city voters. Two separate challenges may show up on the local ballot this fall. It could be a lively little Dumpster war.