Mark Ryavec, president of Venice Stakeholders, wants the Venice Beach Recreation Area cleaned and wrote letter with several photos to illustrate the necessity. Photos were taken 29 April.

This letter is in response to the Update story 27 April “What’s Happening at Venice Beach Park.” Update photos were taken hours after the monthly clean up by the Department of Sanitation. Area covered was from Windward to Dudley. The grassy knolls were noticeably clean of encampments with the exception of two knolls (Westminster and Park Place) and two pergolas.

Update photos were taken to illustrate the cleanliness, not what was left to be cleaned. Any upgrade, relief, cleanliness at the Venice Beach park area is a welcome site. It is unknown who is responsible for the sudden lack of encampments.

The following is Ryavec’s letter:

Please find attached photos of the Venice Beach Recreation Area today (29 April) at 9 AM.

All of these represent encampments which are banned in the VBRA. They all are left at night and, as a Deputy City Attorney advised us in a meeting last July with City Attorney Feuer, can be removed by the Rec. and Parks Department (or another City agency) without notice during the curfew hours.

Further, almost all of these encampments include one or more sleeping bags which are expressly prohibited in the park (see excerpt from letter to Mayor Garcetti of July 8, 2014 from our attorney John Henning).

You will also note a mattress lying on the Boardwalk unattended.

We would ask you once again to remove everything left in the VBRA overnight and enforce the ordinance against encampments and sleeping bags during the day.

It is only when the VBRA is not viewed as a campgrounds will it stop attracting campers from around the nation, who bring with them all the behaviors that are so troublesome and problematic for residents, the general public and business owners.

Thank you for your consideration,

Above in Westminster or Park Place.

The following two photos were sent to some of the previously addressed and to many of the police persons at Venice Beach area.

The first is the knoll at the end of Dudley, The tent is on Ocean Front Walk between rose and ozone and the same men who sit over there every day are drinking malt liquor right now