INSIDE
Off-site Affordable Housing program sparks doubleproject expansion in Santa Monica
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Six Arrested in Lobster Poaching Sting at Santa Monica Pier
Officers, aided by specially trained canines, located lobsters hidden in duffel bags, backpacks, vehicles and even a baby stroller
California wildlife officers arrested six people for lobster poaching at the Santa Monica Pier, months after the spiny lobster season had closed.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife said officers from across Southern California conducted a recent enforcement operation targeting individuals who continued to illegally harvest lobsters after the season ended March 18.
Officers, aided by specially trained canines, located lobsters hidden in duffel bags, backpacks, vehicles and even a baby stroller. They seized 34 lobsters — including several egg-bearing females — and returned them alive to the ocean.
Female lobsters produce between 50,000 and 800,000 eggs per year, which they carry for about 10 weeks. The loss of egg-bearing females can significantly
harm the fishery and affect legal anglers, officials said.
The six suspects were arrested on multiple violations, including taking lobster out of season, exceeding daily bag
limits, taking undersized lobsters, taking lobster by hook and line, and possessing more than triple the daily bag limit.
Penalties for such offenses can include fines of up to $1,000 per violation or up to
one year in jail.
CDFW encouraged the public to report wildlife crimes through its CALTIP program by calling 888-334-2258, using the tip411 app, or submitting tips online.
Santa Monica Police Locate Felony Vehicle
Tied to Whittier Armed Robbery
Officers reported seeing what appeared to be a firearm magazine inside the vehicle
Santa Monica police officers used specialized resources to quickly locate a vehicle wanted in an armed robbery in Whittier, leading to the arrest of the driver without incident on the evening of June 22.
Officers, aided by the department’s SMART Center, spotted the vehicle near
Pico Boulevard and Main Street. K9 Norton and his handler located it within minutes and followed it as backup arrived. The vehicle stopped in the area of Ocean Park Boulevard and Main Street, where officers conducted a high-risk traffic stop due to information that the suspects might be armed.
The driver, identified as George Jeremiah Romero, was taken into custody without incident. Officers reported seeing what appeared to be a firearm magazine inside the vehicle.
Whittier police responded to the scene and took custody of both Romero and the vehicle as part of their ongoing investigation.
Caltrans schedules daytime and overnight lane closures on PCH and Topanga Canyon Boulevard
Work crews will restrict lanes, prompting officials to warn drivers of doubled traffic fines.
Drivers traveling through the coastal Westside must prepare for significant traffic delays next week as Caltrans schedules extensive lane closures and reduced speed zones for Palisades Fire recovery work.
State transportation officials announced that recovery efforts will run from Monday, July 13, through Sunday, July 19.
Daytime maintenance will restrict travel on Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) and Topanga Canyon Boulevard on weekdays between 9 a.m. and 3 a.m., while overnight paving operations will impact late-night commuters. Law enforcement officials warned motorists that traffic fines are doubled within these active construction zones.
Recovery efforts on PCH will target
multiple stretches of the highway, bringing varying restrictions:
Sunset Boulevard to Carbon Beach
Terrace: Crews will enforce a 25 mph speed limit alongside potential single-lane closures.
Temescal Canyon Road to Sunset Boulevard: The speed limit is permanently reduced to 35 mph.
Las Flores Canyon Road to Sunset Boulevard: Drainage repairs and slope stabilization at Las Flores Creek will close the right-turn lane to Rambla Pacifico Street on weekdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., though right turns will still be permitted from the main travel lane.
Big Rock Drive area: Southern California Edison utility work will shut down one lane in each direction Monday through Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Pena Road to Tuna Canyon Road: Retaining wall reconstruction will reduce southbound traffic to a single lane between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. as needed.
South of Topanga Canyon Boulevard to Sunset Boulevard: Northbound traffic will drop to a single lane during midday hours for slope stabilization. Major delays are also expected on Topanga Canyon Boulevard. Weekday commuters traveling between PCH and Grand View Drive will face a 15 mph speed limit and one-lane traffic control between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. Overnight, Caltrans will
conduct repaving work between Happy Trail and PCH from Monday night through Saturday morning, utilizing one-lane traffic control from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.
State officials urge commuters to check the Caltrans QuickMap for real-time conditions before starting their trips.
Santa Monica Opens Nomination Period for City Council, Rent Control Board, School and College Boards
A candidate workshop is scheduled for 10 a.m. July 13 in City Hall Council Chambers to explain the process and distribute nomination packets
The nomination period for Santa Monica’s November election opens Monday, July 13, with candidates able to file for three seats on the City Council, three seats on the Rent Control Board, four seats on the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Board and four seats on the
Santa Monica College District Board.
A candidate workshop is scheduled for 10 a.m. July 13 in City Hall Council Chambers to explain the process and distribute nomination packets. Candidates unable to attend must schedule an appointment to pick up forms afterward.
Completed nomination papers must be filed by 5 p.m. Friday, Aug. 7. The deadline will extend to 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 12, if an incumbent fails to file.
The general election is set for Tuesday, Nov. 3. More information, including appointment times and resources for candidates, is available at santamonica. gov/elections/2026-11-03.
Separately, the City Clerk’s Office has received Notices of Intent to circulate initiative petitions for two measures: one on Airport Land Use and Housing and another on a Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Parcel Tax. The school district parcel tax ballot filing has been accepted.
Michelin Bib Gourmand-Recognized Khan Saab to Open in Downtown Santa Monica
The restaurant, at 115 Santa Monica Blvd., is the company's third Southern California location, joining restaurants in Fullerton and Hawaiian Gardens
Khan Saab Desi Craft Kitchen, a Pakistani and Indian restaurant that has received a Michelin Bib Gourmand designation since 2021, is opening a new location in downtown Santa Monica.
The restaurant, at 115 Santa Monica Blvd., is in a soft-opening phase ahead of its public grand opening scheduled for July 16 at 7 p.m. It is the company's third Southern California location, joining restaurants in Fullerton and Hawaiian Gardens.
Khan Saab was founded in 2020 by chefpartner Imran Ali Mookhi and business partners Ahmad and Iqbal Hosseini. The Fullerton restaurant became the first Pakistani restaurant in Southern California to receive a Michelin Bib Gourmand. Mookhi, who was born in Pakistan, has
worked in several Southern California restaurants, including Tamarind of London, Tantra on Sunset and Tumbi. His menu combines traditional Pakistani and Indian dishes with seasonal California ingredients.
alongside a selection of curries, kebabs and grilled seafood. The restaurant also features an alcoholfree beverage program centered on mocktails and traditional drinks, reflecting the restaurant's halal menu.
The Santa Monica menu includes dishes such as pani puri, goat cheese kulcha, Khan biryani and the "Sloppy Khan," the restaurant's version of a Sloppy Joe made with wagyu beef keema. Vegan offerings include bhel puri and dal Lala Musa,
Off-site Affordable Housing program sparks double-project expansion in Santa Monica
Cypress Equity Investments targets two blocks near Douglas Park for mid-rise residential and retail structures.
Two additional multi-family developments are slated to transform the Wilshire Boulevard corridor as Cypress Equity Investments enlarges its footprint under a specialized municipal housing incentive initiative.
The developer is moving forward with plans for a pair of eight-story mixed-use structures that will collectively add 320 residential units to the area. Both projects are leveraging Santa Monica's off-site affordable housing pilot program. The municipal initiative allows select densitybonus developments to fulfill their lowincome housing requirements at alternative locations, a strategy city officials implemented to accelerate a historically
slow pace of local residential construction.
The first development, located at 2025 Wilshire Boulevard, will replace a low-rise commercial strip previously anchored by a Chipotle and a Veggie Grill. Plans call for 150 apartments situated above 8,600 square feet of ground-floor retail space and a three-level underground garage
accommodating 205 vehicles. DLR Group is spearheading the architectural design of the podium-style building, which features a pronounced, modern geometric cutout along its main facade to expose an interior courtyard to the streetscape.
Further east at 2501 Wilshire Boulevard, a neighboring commercial block adjacent
to Douglas Park will be demolished to make way for a similar eight-story complex. Designed by Ottinger Architects, this second building will feature 170 residential units, roughly 9,000 square feet of ground-level commercial storefronts, and a four-level subterranean parking garage with space for 253 cars.
Letter to the Editor: Sean Ahaus writes about the delayed opening of the California Roadhouse at the Santa Monica Pier.
Dear Editor,
Santa Monica has spent years discussing economic recovery, support for local businesses, and revitalizing the Pier. Yet one of the Pier's largest restaurant spaces continues to sit vacant while a project capable of creating more than 50 jobs remains at a standstill.
My name is Sean Ahaus, founder of California Roadhouse, Inc. For more than a year, we have worked with the City of Santa Monica to open a new Californiathemed restaurant and live music venue at 256 Santa Monica Pier. We remain ready to invest, hire, and open our doors. The remaining obstacle is not financing, construction, or our willingness to move forward. It is an unresolved dispute over labor-related provisions in the City's proposed lease.
We believe those provisions go beyond the City's traditional role as a landlord and instead attempt to regulate aspects of the employer-employee relationship that are governed by state and federal labor law. Whether people ultimately agree with our legal position or not, the public deserves to know why these issues have prevented a major public property from reopening. For months we have requested meetings with City officials to discuss these concerns
and seek a practical resolution. We believe these issues can be resolved through goodfaith negotiations. Instead, the process has remained stalled while workers, taxpayers, nearby businesses, and visitors continue paying the price.
Every month this property remains vacant represents another month of lost employment opportunities, reduce economic activity, and unrealized tax revenue. At a time when many Santa Monica businesses continue facing economic challenges, unnecessary delays should concern everyone who wants to see the Pier thrive.
I appreciate Councilmember Lana Negrete for meeting with us and listening to our concerns. Public officials do not have to agree with every constituent, but they should be willing to engage in meaningful dialogue. That willingness to listen strengthens public trust.
I also believe greater transparency would benefit everyone involved. Residents deserve to understand how these disputed lease provisions were developed, why they remain necessary, and whether outside organizations influenced the City's negotiating position. Open government requires openness about decisions that affect the public.
This discussion is larger than California Roadhouse. It raises broader questions about how Santa Monica encourages investment, creates jobs, and balances competing public interests while respecting established law.
California Roadhouse remains prepared to sign a lawful lease immediately and begin creating jobs, generating tax revenue, and bringing new entertainment to the Pier. We hope City leaders will return to
productive negotiations so this long-vacant property can finally become an asset for the entire community.
Santa Monica deserves a thriving Pier, thriving local businesses, and a government that embraces transparency, accountability, and constructive dialogue.
Sincerely, Sean Ahaus Founder California Roadhouse, Inc.
Curious City 07/17/26: YOU BET WE CAN DO THIS
By CHARLES ANDREWS
THE GLOVES ARE BACK ON
But these are the work gloves. How much do you love your freedoms, your rights, your democracy? I know you do. So, time to get to work.
Now, now, no complaints. I wanted to use the word “kvetching,” but that means complaining about little things. This is not a little thing.
All of you who are rolled up in a fetal ball in the corner, at least metaphorically, pay attention. As you know, this is serious, existential stuff. But we are not yet doomed. Despair is not an option, because that breeds inaction. There are solutions. They are not necessarily easy ones. They can’t be accomplished from your couch, TV remote in hand. But easier than you may think, and bringing a sense of
accomplishment, community, even joy. It doesn‘t happen if you get a truckload of likes on your clever social media posts. Not even if you have a gazillion followers. Although certainly we need to use technology smartly, we need bodies and minds, all hands on deck.
THINGS HAVE GONE DOWNHILL SO QUICKLY
Both locally and nationally. It has been easy to slip into malaise, depression, apathy, inaction. But you know that is counterproductive, sliding faster downhill. But what to do, what to do?
Well, open your eyes, read, talk to neighbors, go to neighborhood meetings (by Zoom, if you wish), and you will discover there are lots of folks just like you who are taking the right steps. It’s a numbers game, and we have the numbers. The Bad Guys may have the guns and the troops and the mountains of cash, but always remember Hungary and Minnesota. Hungary slipped deep into autocracy for 14 years under the sway and oppression of Viktor Orban, and he really had the voting decks stacked for their most recent election. But guess what? Despite all that, the Hungarian people had enough. They turned out in huge numbers and voted him out. Simple as that. Minnesota? We saw it on our TVs every day, ordinary people turning out to protect each other, with cellphone cameras and whistles and simple acts of kindness, and despite some horrible tragedies, they persevered and prevailed. And they did it in snow and freezing cold. We can do it in shorts and flip-flops.
ENDORSEMENTS
As I write this, the Santa Monica Democratic Club is preparing to take a vote of its members as to which candidates should be endorsed for the coming elections. Those endorsements carry a lot of weight because this city is so full of
Democrats and so many uninformed voters willing to vote the party line. I do not like the way the SM Dem Club has operated for many years. So a few months ago, I joined to try to give a different voice to this power broker. We have already seen them take different positions, such as recently on the build skyscrapers on our beach bill sponsored by our state Assembly Member Rick Zbur, running for re-election, and supported by Council Member Dan Hall, among others. The Dem Club votes to oppose 1470 helped get it modified drastically. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, to beat ‘em. It took 35 bucks and a little effort. But it’s the kind of thing that makes you feel less helpless.
The more you look into it, the more you find how many people are making efforts in so many areas that are successfully fighting the MAGA madness. As much as I disparage the national Democratic party, they are taking a lot of effective action. The same with national organizations like the NAACP, ACLU, Southern Poverty Law Center. Lawsuits, subpoenas, protest marches to raise awareness, and on-site protests that block and delay illegal acts.
Look at all the success young candidates for office, REAL progressives, talking about the bread and butter issues voters care about, following the campaign style of both young New Youtk mayor Zorhan Mamdani and young-thinking old Sen. Bernie Sanders, still a force to be reckoned with for connecting with voters, especially young ones. Rep. Alexandria OcasioCortez is more influential than ever, still not accepting a penny of corporate money for her campaigns.
LOCALLY
Both Heather Thomason, running for Rent Control Board, and Ashley Olerson, a candidate for Council, have “come out of nowhere” to have a real chance for real
change. It is a joke to say they came out of nowhere. Both have spent a long time talking to everyone, on every side of the political fences, to build knowledge and coalitions of people who know our City government can be so much better, so much less machine-controlled and corrupt. Ideals, not ideologues. I am more optimistic for these long-fought-for changes than I have ever been.
But it will take everyone pitching in. This country can be the shining city on the hill (or the beach). The world came to visit for the World Cup and discovered and fell in love with America. Let us finally take the core principles we were founded upon and turn them into reality. We the People. What a concept.
Charles Andrews has lived in Santa Monica for 40 years and wouldn’t live anywhere else in the world. Really. Send love and/or rebuke to him at therealmrmusic@gmail.com
Brand & Marketing Designer (Marina Del Rey, CA). Ensure our co’s & our clients’ brand identities through product logos & visual frameworks reflect product functionality, user exp, & differentiation w/in the competitive mkt. Bachelor’s deg in graphic dsgn or another closely rltd field; College coursework in Typography; Proficiency in Adobe Creative Suite (incl Illustrator Photoshop, & InDesign). Send resume to adam.cao@nebulaus.com or Nebula Tech Inc. c/o Adam Cao, 475 Washington Blvd, Marina Del Rey, CA 90292
The War Over Who Gets to Decide SM a.r.t.
We are in the midst of an era of conflict over space. Not war in the traditional sense. No tanks, no declarations, but a conflict all the same, fought in Council chambers and comment periods, in the margins of environmental impact reports, in the language of zoning ordinances that almost nobody reads and almost everybody is governed by.
Who controls public space, who benefits from that control, what residents have to say about any of it. These questions sit at the center of the fight, and they rarely get answered clearly, until one looks closely. A sidewalk is not just a sidewalk, it is a statement about who a city is for. A building height limit is a claim about the future, staked out in feet and stories, defended or attacked depending on who owns what, and who wants what built next door.
The terrain of this conflict is familiar to anyone who has sat through a City Council meeting and seen little discussion of how people move through a city, whether a twenty-story building belongs on a street that has never seen anything taller than three, and whether the view from a resident's kitchen window is a private amenity or a public good worth protecting. These disputes look local, almost parochial, but they are also proxies for something much larger: a redefinition of who has standing to shape the place they live in.
Four camps have staked out positions in Santa Monica. Local residents, who tend to want the city they already have, or some improved version of it. Outside interests, capital that sees underused land and calculates return. Political ideologues, who have decided in advance what the right answer looks like and are seeking the means to impose it. And local government, caught between all three, accountable to residents on paper but to a much wider set of pressures in practice, and often not an honest broker itself.
The extremes increasingly talk past the people in the middle. At a recent City Council election debate, one candidate declared that developers should be given completely free rein. Total deference to capital, dressed up as pragmatism. That posture leaves little room for the resident who simply wants a say in what happens on their block and in their city. But the more troubling failure is not the fringe candidate saying the quiet part out loud. It is the elected and appointed leadership that claims to represent residents while quietly often working against their interests.
That is the real casualty here, not any particular building, nor any particular policy. The erosion of the idea that residents have a legitimate claim to influence over their own town. Development interests have learned to frame local control as obstruction, a relic standing in the way of
housing production, climate goals, equity. Ideological movements, including some on the dais, have learned to frame local control as a mask for exclusion, a euphemism for keeping people out. Both framings are convenient, and both let the people making the argument avoid the harder work of persuading their neighbors.
Somewhere in this, the neighbor gets lost. The retiree who has lived in a rentcontrolled unit for thirty years. The family that bought a small house near the coast decades before it became unaffordable to buy anything near the coast at all. The renter who has no equity in any building but plenty of stake in whether the street outside remains walkable, whether the light still reaches the yard, and whether the character of the neighborhood survives one more approval. These people are not opposed to change, most of them have lived through plenty of it. What they resist is change engineered somewhere else, by staff and legislators coordinating outside the public process, then handed to the city as a fait accompli by officials who were supposed to be on their side.
There is a mechanism running underneath all of this, and it deserves naming. State preemption. California has spent the last decade building a legal architecture that strips discretion away from local governments and hands it to developers who meet certain thresholds. Density
bonuses. Ministerial approval. Streamlined review that removes public hearings from the process altogether. Each law arrives with a defensible rationale, usually tied to the state's housing affordability crisis, and each one further narrows what a city council, let alone a resident, actually gets to decide. The debate at the local level increasingly happens after the real decisions have already been made in Sacramento and, often, behind the scenes in this city as well.
None of this means residents are always right, or that every objection to new construction reflects some legitimate stake in community character (a term described as racist by a City Council member earlier this year) rather than simple resistance to anyone new moving in. Plenty of local opposition has hidden behind traffic studies and shadow analyses, while the real objection was never spoken aloud. But the existence of some bad-faith opposition does not settle the larger question. It only makes it easier for city leaders to wave off legitimate concern as more of the same. What gets lost in the shouting is a basic proposition: that people who live somewhere have some claim to a voice in what it becomes. Not a veto, and not control over every parcel forever–a voice. The current fight has structured itself so that voice barely registers, drowned out by capital on one side and ideology on the
other, both certain they already know what the city should look like.
The city is not an abstraction to the people who live in it. It is where they raised children, buried parents, learned the names of the people who run the corner store. Free rein for corporate developers and their ideological allies treats that history as friction to be engineered around. A Council that co-sponsors its own preemption treats it as an afterthought, something to be managed rather than protected. Somewhere between those two failures is where most people in this city actually live, and the space left for them keeps getting smaller.
Daniel Jansenson, Architect, for Santa Monica Architects for a Responsible Tomorrow
Dan Jansenson, Architect (former Building & Fire-Life Safety Commissioner); Robert H. Taylor, Architect AIA; Mario Fonda-Bonardi, Architect AIA (former Planning Commissioner); Sam Tolkin, Architect (former Planning Commissioner); Michael Jolly ARECRE; Jack Hillbrand AIA, Landmarks Commission Architect; Phil Brock (SM Mayor, ret.); Matt Hoefler, Architect NCARB; Heather Thomason, community organizer; Charles Andrews, columnist. journalist; Bruce Leddy, Human Services Commissioner and NOMA Co-Chair.
Santa Monica Architects for a Responsible Tomorrow
A Class for Every Dream
SANTA MONICA COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Dr. Sion Roy, Chair; Dr. Tom Peters, Vice Chair; Dr. Luis Barrera Castañón; Anastasia Foster; Dr. Nancy Greenstein; Dr. Margaret Quiñones-Perez; Rob Rader; Audrey Liljegren, Student Trustee; Kathryn E. Jeffery, Ph.D., Superintendent/President Santa Monica