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MONDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2014
Volume 14 Issue 40
Santa Monica Daily Press
LAUGHING MATTERS SEE PAGE 3
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THE WINTER TEMPERATURES ISSUE
Bumblebee loves Santa Monica buildings BY DAVID MARK SIMPSON Daily Press Staff Writer
Matthew Hall matt@smdp.com
ART: Bumblebee has several works in the area including a new mural on Wilshire Blvd.
Drought, plastic bags prompt new California laws DON THOMPSON
WILSHIRE BLVD On Wilshire Boulevard, seven blocks from the beach, a giant boy is straining through his binoculars to see the ocean — an increasingly hard feat in Santa Monica. The boy was created by an artist who goes cryptically by the name Bumblebee Loves You (he would not give his real name for this article) and commissioned by equally cryptic development group Pacshore Partners. Pacshore is adaptively re-using unique, old buildings — in this case an Art Deco remnant at 631 Wilshire — and filling them with California-based shops and restaurants — in this case Mendocino Farms, Sidecar Doughnuts, and Juice Served Here. Bumblebee Loves You, whose mural on Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles was placed sixth on L.A. Weekly’s list of the “10 Best L.A. Street Art Murals of 2014,” got his start messing around with images on Photoshop. He worked his creations into street art, both legal and illegal, before landing pieces with the Youth Homelessness Project in West Hollywood in 2011. He’d paint huge sleeping children inside of allies for the nonprofit. “It looked peaceful but the meaning behind it was very serious,” he said. The giant kids became his go-to subject. “I think people really started to take notice of my work and started talking,” Bumblebee said, “and big landowners, developers, whatever, they like it because they’re very site-
Legislature into action in 2014, leading lawmakers to regulate groundwater for the first time and override homeowners associations that fine members for replacing lawns with more drought-tolerant landscaping. The most populous state also becomes the first to set a “yes means yes” standard for sex between college students and the first to ban single-use plastic bags, a law the plastic bag industry is seeking to overturn through a voter referenSEE LAWS PAGE 7
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COMMERCIAL I CUSTOM RESIDENTIAL I TENANT IMPROVEMENTS
BY DAVID MARK SIMPSON Daily Press Staff Writer
CITY HALL City Council honored two members of the Santa Monica community who’d died at the ages of 35 and 41. Kate Levy, 35, who died suddenly in a car crash in November, was remembered for her fight against homelessness as a senior administrative analyst in City Hall’s Human Services Division. “Kate was an enthusiastic employee. She embraced her responsibilities with great passion and enthusiasm,” said Mayor Kevin McKeown at council’s meeting. “She was committed to alleviating the suffering of people experiencing homelessness. She brought together people in different departments and areas of expertise to do whatever it took to
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Adjournments: Two pass too young
Associated Press
SACRAMENTO California’s historic drought prompted the
specific the work and there’s always a story behind each one, yet they’re really playful and they don’t necessarily have to be so serious all the time.” Bumblebee Loves You has another piece in Santa Monica, on the outside of a building at 1640 Fifth Street (where the Daily Press is located) depicting a girl on a surfboard. The boy on the Wilshire building is her brother, he said. “My whole thought process behind this was that the beach was really close, this kid is so big,” he said. “When I was a kid, it takes all day to even get to the beach from where I’m from and by the time I get to the beach you have to walk across 300 yards of sand to get to the water. So this kid has that feeling.” Philip Orosco, managing partner at Pacshore Partners, said they picked Bumblebee for just that feeling. “When I was first presented with the portfolio of Bumblebee I found that his pieces had a sense of innocence that would fit well with the culture of Santa Monica,” he said. “Then we decided to go big.” Despite his multi-floor size and his binoculars, the boy, who’s not yet been named, might have trouble seeing the ocean. “It’s funny cause there’s this building right over there and every time I go up to the fifth floor on this lift, I’m just like, dang, if that building wasn’t there I’d be able to see the sunset, at least the sunset,” Bumblebee said. “But they have the view.” The mural is scheduled to be completed in January.
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house the most vulnerable and chronically-ill individuals in Santa Monica.” Levy is survived by her husband Alex and her infant son August. “She’ll be missed by her family, her friends, and the entire Human Services Division staff and all of us here at City Hall,” McKeown said. BRANDON CRAMER
Brandon Cramer, a regular on the Third Street Promenade, died in his sleep in November at the age of 41. “Brandon Cramer loved the promenade, befriending and running errands for many of the shop owners, cart vendors, SEE COUNCIL PAGE 9
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