YO!
VENICE www.yovenice.com
December 31 – January 27, 2022
Venice Beach Anti-Vax Poster Painted Over Ocean Front Walk poster reading “Leave the Vax, take the Cannoli” removed B y S am C atanzaro An anti-vaccination poster on Venice Beach has been painted over. “Leave the Vax, take the Cannoli,” read the provocative anti-vaccine mural that was painted on the side of a Venice Beach building last week. Tony Roman, the owner of Basilico’s Pasta e Vino in Huntington Beach, was the person responsible for this anti-vax message on the side of the Potter Building (1305 Ocean Front Walk). The mural referenced a scene from Francis Ford Coppola’s classic film, “The Godfather”, in which a mafia capo, Peter Clemenza, tells the button man, Rocco, to “Leave the gun, take the Cannoli”, after Rocco carried out the hit on the betrayer Paulie Gatto. The poster was met with disapproval from many residents of the building who found the message divisive. “For them to bring something divisive like that to our community, it was offensive to me. There is a lot of visceral response in the building,” Sherri Elidressi, a resident of the
building, told the media. On Tuesday, November 23, the poster was gone, with black paint covering the space it had occupied. Following the removal, Roman took to social media condemning the building’s owner along with Los Angeles City Councilmember Mike Bonin, who represents Venice. “The cancel culture mob, and Los Angeles officials have pressured the building owner to cave. He has ordered the billboard company to remove the mural, claiming it’s offensive. antiAmerican LA Councilman Mike Bonin led the charge. Time to remind him that he still lives in the United States of America,” Roman wrote on Instagram. Neither Bonin nor the owner of the building immediately responded to a request for comment. As reported by the Los Angeles Times, L.A. officials told the paper prior to the removal that they were reviewing whether the painting would be allowed to remain, “given that the property owner did not obtain a permit required to make alterations to a historic structure.” In 2018, City Council approved historic-cultural monument status for the 109-year-old building. “The city Planning Department’s office of historic resources must issue permits for murals on designated historic monuments. Because
Poster, see page 6
Photo: Sam Catanzaro
Black paint is seen covering what used to be an anti-vaccination mural on the Potter Building
The poster seen November 22.
Photo: Sam Catanzaro
Venice Pilot Program One of the First of Its Kind in the United States CIRCLE pilot teams dispatched B y D olores Q uintana The Crisis and Incident Response through Community-Led Engagement or CIRCLE pilot program has begun in Hollywood and Venice. Teams have been dispatched to make contact with and gain the trust of people experiencing homelessness in those areas so that later on this month, these teams can be on call 24 hours a day and seven days a week to respond to non emergency 911 calls along with calls to the LAPD non emergency lines according to Mayor Eric Garcetti. This would mean that the police would no longer be the first responders to such calls. CIRCLE is a program that is one of the first of its kind in the United States. Mayor Garcetti also said that CIRCLE
teams will be on hand to talk with unhoused people, do occasional sanitation duties when necessary, work to de-escalate any disputes, and provide people experiencing homelessness with city referrals for services they need. Each CIRCLE team has a mental health clinician or licensed clinician trained in behavioral healthcare, an outreach worker and a community ambassador. Urban Alchemy will be providing the staff for this pilot program and has previously been in charge of the Los Angeles City’s portable shower and restroom program along with some of the City’s temporary housing. The Venice and Hollywood are the first areas where the program has been launched because of the high incidence of service calls related to the unhoused and the amount of unhoused people in each area. There are other pilot programs that have recently been launched in addition to CIRCLE in Venice. The Los Angeles Fire Department has a Fast Response Vehicle or FRV that services
Photo: Sam Catanzaro
the boardwalk area to respond quickly to emergencies related to the unhoused in the area. Councilmember Mike Bonin has a
volunteer pilot program devoted to helping clear the Special Enforcement Cleanup Zone in Venice.