Venice Beach

Taylor Negron grew up in L.A. "I remember when the palm trees were short and Tomorrowland was modern," says Negron, who lives in Venice and whose credits include "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and a blog at Huffington Post's 236.com. He also has a home in France. "I've been abroad for most of this year. I'm savoring being in California every minute, learning that traffic is just God's way of saying 'Hi.' " HUNTING AND GATHERING I like to think Venice is the Joan Didion L.A. of the '70s.

Vendors and performance artists who sell their wares and entertain on the Venice Beach boardwalk will soon be operating under a new set of rules. A new ordinance, approved unanimously by the Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday, is aimed at settling a years-long battle over how to regulate an area that has long defied regulation. Backers argue that the rules will curtail unwanted commercial activity and bring order to an often unruly subculture grounded in freewheeling public expression.

Bill Howard says he's no 98-pound weakling sitting on the beach, waiting for a he-man to kick sand in his face. Joe Wheatley says he's no biceps-bulging bully trying to muscle in on someone else's place in the sun. That's the short version of the ego flexing taking place between a veteran weightlifting champion and a younger promoter as this year's bodybuilding season approaches at Venice's Muscle Beach.

Officials reopened Venice and Dockweiler beaches Saturday, after a 5,000-gallon sewage spill into Ballona Creek earlier in the week made swimming unsafe. With Memorial Day approaching, county environmental health officials declared the areas safe about 2:45 p.m.

THE confrontation took place just inside the front entrance of the dream house in Venice that Jack Hoffmann had been painstakingly renovating for three years. A homeless man, strong from bodybuilding, whipped out a knife and thrust it twice into Hoffmann's chest. Then he sliced across Hoffmann's throat. When Hoffmann raised his arm defensively, the man cut across it as well. Then he speared Hoffmann's back with the knife, nicking his liver. Hoffmann wondered: \o7Is\f7 \o7this it?

Paige Clay and Eveline Popp are on two sides of a long-simmering controversy in the pricey neighborhoods near Venice Beach. Clay owns a restaurant on Rose Avenue that sits amid a hotbed of homelessness and people who live in cars, campers and recreational vehicles. Popp has been living in a rusty recreational vehicle, which she parks along Rose and nearby streets.

A Venice group on Monday sued the California Coastal Commission over the group's request to limit overnight parking in five areas near Venice Beach where residents have complained for years about the growing number of people living in cars and campers. The suit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, raises a fundamental issue: Does the state coastal panel have the legal authority to determine where people can and cannot park in coastal areas? The agency's staff recommended that the permit parking zones be approved, but commissioners in June rebuffed the idea, contending they were being asked to resolve a social issue rather than a beach access issue.

After spending more than 15 years fighting for a place to show off their kickflips and ollies, a group of Venice activists weren't about to sit back and let commercial promoters skate off with their work. So Warner Bros. Consumer Products and ASA Entertainment won't be inaugurating the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks' new $2.5-million public skateboard park at Venice Beach after all. The two companies last month announced that their Labor Day Supergirl Jam would be the premiere event at the new three-basin skateboard complex next to the Venice boardwalk near Windward Avenue.

Nathan Alan Morgan, 25, was found beaten to death and buried under a mound of sand on Venice Beach on the morning of March 10, 2008. More than a year later, police still don't know who killed him or why. Just hours before his battered body was found in the area where the Venice Beach drum circle is performed, Morgan had been treated in Centinela Freeman Regional Medical Center's emergency room for an injury to his left elbow. Coroner's records show that he told hospital officials he had hurt himself while "doing gymnastics drunk."

A room and a tat in Venice Vacationers with high pain tolerance can save money with an unusual package at a new Venice Beach hotel. Guests at the Hotel Erwin can receive a $100 voucher for a tattoo from an in-house graffiti and tattoo artist. And they'll receive a $500 bonus if they get a tattoo that says "I ♥ Hotel Erwin." The "Ink and Stay" package, available through Dec. 30, includes Lubriderm lotion, an ice pack and a bottle of tequila. Prices start at $399 plus tax for a double room.