Update

Q-vo Neighborinos!

Still here! Even though I am an “essential” worker (HAHAHAHA!!) and have been going back to the workplace since last June, I’ve yet to catch the dreaded pandemic virus. Oh, trust me, the managers of the world as-it-is have done everything to put me in a position to catch it, mostly by them being utterly lousy at keeping us all safe. Gotta keep the widget factory churning out the commodities! The economy is more important than your little family unit, as we’ve all figured out. In any case, I’ve managed to dodge them Covid bullets for now, hopefully my luck will not run out.

On that sad note, it looks like La Llamarada is down for the count. They tried reopening once for pickup service (which was really useful once I got tired of my own beans!) but quickly shut back down. I zoomed into this photo I took back in January and I just noticed they have a Gas Co disconnect notice, not a good sign. Let’s pour one out for this eatery that provided us all with tasty, quick, and affordable meals.

Remember that taco stand I wrote about a decade ago? It’s now the linchpin of the Ave 26 “Night Market” on Artesian & Humboldt. I doubt the tacos are that great, but that stand has shown persistence for years, even after a few Health Dept shutdowns. They kept it up and have grown a following. Now a bunch of other food options have gathered around them, and I hear some Tik Tok influencers helped fuel their recent explosion in popularity. It’s jumped the shark from just providing food to locals to being a destination event for bored suburban teens, and their equally bored-of-being-at-home parents. Of course, the City of LA hasn’t figured out how to manage this massive event, preferring to be hands-off instead of offering solutions like mobile toilets, trash cans, or even a shuttle from some nearby parking lot to deal with the influx of cars impacting the neighborhood. I will never accuse the city of being creative in dealing with novel issues, cuz that’s not how they roll. I suspect the idea is to let a good idea go bad so they can just crack down on it and terminate the whole concept. This would not be surprising.

UPDATE!

Boy am I slow on publishing posts! While I was working on this one, the local council person Gil Cedillo pulled a dickhead move and shut down the “night market” on Wednesday. I saw the concrete Jersey Barriers being put down early that morning, thinking that they were finally going to make it safe for pedestrians to walk the market stalls without cars. HAHAHA! I am so dumb. Of course, as predicted, they just shut down the whole thing. Like I said, there really are lots of thorny issues with the boom in popularity of the market but even though I have been impacted, shutting it down was never a good idea. This is obviously the new direction the city is taking to not deal with real issues. The City helped spark the housing crisis and the resulting homeless situation, but now they think they can strong arm their way out of the mess they made. Raiding Echo Park and clearing out Ave 26 Market are part of the same program. And you all thought the Democrats would care about you? Por favor.

Gonna end this abruptly so that nothing new pops up while posting.

Hasta Pronto!

EL CHAVO!