Tag: Litter

Thanks Erica!

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Last night, around 8:30 PM, Erica picked up her Avocado Spread and two drinks from a Starbucks Drive-Thru (6833 Van Nuys Blvd, Van Nuys, CA 91405). Store #23369.

Then she (or they, meaning two persons in the traditional sense of the word) drove to the 15000 Block of Hamlin Street, parked her vehicle, and devoured (her/their) meal.

When (she/they) were done (she/they) threw everything out of (her/their) car, and left (her/their) mess on the street where (she/they) had parked under the exquisite oak trees and had enjoyed a quiet dinner in the peaceful shade of dusk.

(She/they) are, unfortunately, typical of Van Nuys.

These are also the people who speed through red lights, who play their music at full blast in their car, who also steal packages from front porches, and for many people these are our friends, families and neighbors.

Do I care if these people are any particular ethnic group or wounded victim group? Does their identity matter?

Not in the least. Because identity is not a matter of character. You are born with identity but you learn character. I just care that people I live near destroy my surroundings with their ignorant selfishness.

There is no elected leader, no parent, no law enforcement person who can police this kind of selfish behavior.

It is purely a matter of individual conscience and character.

Mayor Garbageciti’s Los Angeles

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It is probable and likely and arguable that Los Angeles is perhaps the dirtiest large city in the United States.

Gilmore near Columbus, Van Nuys, CA.


Near LA Fitness, Sepulveda Bl. Van Nuys, CA.

New York, Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, Denver, Dallas, Miami: they do not have the amount of illegal dumping, trash, shopping carts of garbage, furniture, mountains of debris and litter in every park, street, and parking lot.

A morning walk to the gym, encompassing half a mile along Columbus, Victory and Sepulveda in Van Nuys brings one past neglect on a large and small scale, from the homeless taking over bus benches, to the non-homeless indifference to sanitation which is a hallmark of Los Angeles.

Los Angeles does not present a picture of a civilized city to anyone. Besides our nightly news of shootings and car chases, we have transformed our environment into a city where it is embarrassing to show visitors around, where the infrastructure, from pollution to transportation to parks, is sub-standard.

Put aside the yellow air, and the starter homes for $1.2 million next to a freeway. Put aside the sprawl of mini-malls and billboards and car washes and marijuana clinics and muffler shops and junk food. Put aside the speeding cars running red lights, the people, one to a car, driving to work at 5 MPH. And, of course, little spoken of…. the morning rush hour of white parents taking their kids to a school 25 miles away from home because the local school is too darkly complexioned for many liberals to bear.

The Bus Bench Near Victory at Sepulveda


Normality in Modern Los Angeles.

Yes, dismiss all that and just focus on the trash, the trash everywhere, the trash that is all around us. 

Are you listening Mayor Garbageciti? Or are you on a flight to somewhere to lay the groundwork for your presidential run?

Along Sepulveda. Nobody’s responsibility.

Wendy’s: 6181 Sepulveda, Van Nuys, CA

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The parking lot at Wendy’s (6181 Sepulveda at Erwin) is full of trash. It has been that way for many months.

The scene: shopping baskets full of garbage, discarded clothes, fast food containers, and all the litter that a Wendy’s can produce.

Conversations with the man who cleans the parking lot at Wendy’s, along with a visit to an employee at Wendy’s has produced no results. They tell me that the responsibility for cleaning belongs to LA Fitness Van Nuys, even though the towing signs along the cinderblock are all “Wendy’s”.

LA Fitness takes care of everything in their newly paved area, but Wendy’s takes care of nothing except what is directly around the sidewalks on their building perimeter.

Why is this tolerated?

Sheer laziness and neglect and the refusal to take responsibility and pride: that is Wendy’s doing.

The victims are anyone who lives in Van Nuys and the surrounding community.

Waiting for the Bus on Sepulveda

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Bus Stop Crebelley, Vaud, Switzerland © 2013 Gerald Verdon
Bus Stop
Crebelley, Vaud, Switzerland
© 2013 Gerald Verdon

Later this year, friends and family from Zurich, Switzerland will visit here in Van Nuys. In that lovely nation public transport is dignified, clean, cheap and abundant. (see photo above)

The visitors will see Los Angeles with Swiss eyes, a city where trash sits on Sepulveda in both human and inhuman formations. Only Disneyland and Magic Mountain will come close to presenting an ideal city. That’s our American dream.

But for the bus riders who must wait in the sun, without protection, for 30 or 45 or 60 minutes, before a bus arrives, for these people trudging up to work at low paying jobs putting bagels into bags, or unloading boxes, imagine how their day starts before work?

Imagine they must sit here at the beginning and sometimes the end of their day. And think of what this says about Los Angeles, that our bus system is so neglected that people are treated no better than garbage.

What do Mayor Garcetti and Councilwoman Nury Martinez plan to do about this?

734 Bus at Sepulveda and Busway, Van Nuys, CA. By Andy Hurvitz
734 Bus at Sepulveda and Busway, Van Nuys, CA. By Andy Hurvitz

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LA Fitness Van Nuys.

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Fast-food wrappers and soda containers litter the parking lot of the LA Fitness on Sepulveda in Van Nuys.

For at least five months, discarded lumber, illegally dumped, has lain scattered.  Members on their way to step class or leaving the gym scarf down burgers, fries and dump their refuse right on the pavement.

The culture of Van Nuys.