Bear With Me for the Grisly Details
Big Bare? Gil Chesterton of Valley Village says the best crime log item he’s seen in a while appeared in Big Bear’s Grizzly newspaper:
“1:50 a.m. Reporting party advises naked male just tried to get into cab in front of bar in the village.”
Results of the investigation: “Clear--everyone in village has clothes on.”
LITTLE BEAR ADVISORY: Lisa Dare was on the Foothill Freeway when “other cars started slowing. I wondered if there was an accident. Well, there was, sort of. Brand new Valentine’s Day Teddy Bears were spilled here and there on the freeway and people had slowed down and were driving carefully to avoid running over them.
“Gee!” added Dare. “In my experience, these drivers were more careful than drivers on a road with live animals.”
UNWANTED ACCESSORY: Jon Sanserino sent along an item that’s been circulating on the Internet--a photo of a BMW from California that sported an extra hose because it parked too close to a fire hydrant (see accompanying).
READ THE SMALL PRINT: Ramiro Urrutia of L.A. could be excused for wondering if the cashier at one store was secretly trying to tell him not to make a purchase (see accompanying). A lot of drama, considering he was only buying hand towels.
PARKING COPS HAVE HEARTS? “Pain & Parking in Los Angeles,” KCET’s documentary Monday night, was not only entertaining but instructive.
A woman who runs a metaphysical shop shared this secret for finding parking spaces: She always takes a crystal with her when she drives and when she arrives at a destination, “I pick it up and point it and people leave their parking places.”
Another handy hint came from a woman who carries a bottomless trash container in her trunk. Just the thing for covering a fire hydrant near an inviting patch of curb (are you listening BMW drivers?). Don’t forget to put the lid on it.
As for talking your way out of a parking ticket, the filmmakers, using a hidden camera, showed an actor who unsuccessfully tried arguing and begging.
However, when the actor wept he was able to persuade sympathetic (and unsuspecting) cops to rescind three different tickets they had already written, thus dispelling the myth that they cannot undo tickets.
OH, HAVE ANOTHER DRINK: Your average eatery might be reluctant to reveal it figured in a TV news investigation. Not the 45-year-old Saratoga (formerly Nikola’s) on Sunset Boulevard near Dodger Stadium.
The restaurant--especially its bar--has long been a favorite spot for the long lunches of politicos, cops, athletes and even a couple of reporters.
A historical note on the menu proudly recounts that “in the 1970s, TV muckraker Baxter Ward rolled his cameras into the parking lot to document the number of county cars present during lunchtime and, to add insult to injury, then photographed the patrons at the bar.
“Ward later won a seat on the Board of Supervisors as a reform candidate. The restaurant outlasted Ward’s political career.”
As well as the careers, I imagine, of some of those county workers.
GETTING THE POINT: Alas when the restaurant changed its name to Saratoga and adopted a horse-racing theme, it took down one of my favorite decorations--a swordfish donated by former County Supervisor Ernie Debs. Legend has it that one night when a reporter was confronted by a jealous husband, he grabbed the fish and waved it to fend off his attacker.
miscelLAny:
L.A.’s parking forces have 300 Denver boots for immobilizing cars with five or more unpaid tickets.