Venice Beach= Horrible (Paradise: living, moving, health)

[BRinSM]

if you go to venice beach and want to enjoy the sand and surf you have choose your spot wisely. the kelp issue cannot be controlled, but if you stay south of washington blvd a few hundred yards it's like you have the entire beach to yourself. anything north of washington all the ways up to the santa monica pier is going to be very crowded. however, even at it's most crowded, LA beaches are nothing like those in rio http://blog.brillianttrips.com/wp-co...nema-beach.jpg.

[Charles]

Here's a shot I took last July at Zuma beach:

[majoun]

Originally Posted by Charles

Here's a shot I took last July at Zuma beach:

A very great picture. Zuma's become much more diverse than I remember it as being ; haven't been there in years. A good representation of many of L.A.'s ethnicities on the beach and coexisting together.

As for Venice: I wouldn't go in the water myself unless I wanted some type of infection. It isn't just the kelp one has to worry about. The activities that go on at night on the sand result in syringes and used condoms in the water. And whatever one does - stay off the sand at night unless one is involved in the very sordid activities that go on there. I'm hesitant about using the public bathrooms on the beach even during the day and wouldn't think about doing so at night due to one of the wildest and craziest cruising/cottaging scenes in all of Los Angeles, fueled by the rampantly available meth. If you are not a hard drug user, hard drug dealer, or involved in said cruising scene you have NO business being on the sand at night and are looking for trouble by doing so. Regretfully thanks to severe homeless problems particularly with runaways the central area of Ocean Front Walk (from Brooks to Venice Blvd.) and surrounding Central Beach/Windward Circle neighborhood of Venice , which used to be relatively safe at night if one took precautions, is no longer safe at night. North Beach is still relatively safe (provided one stays off the sand at night) and South Beach and the Peninsula are even safer (the nicest and most expensive areas of Venice Beach, closer to Marina Del Rey, again provided one stays off the sand at night - although this area has less sleaze as a whole and aside from the area by Washington Blvd. tends to be more residential).

I agree with West of Encino that Venice's general problems and the neglect of Venice are the result of it being part of the city of L.A. If Venice was its own city it would be safer, cleaner, and far less problematic. L.A. has long neglected Venice. It generally takes extremely sensational crimes to happen for the LAPD to devote police resources to Venice.

[yamota]

California beaches really aren't what most experts would call "world class". Northern CA beaches are too cold and southern CA beaches are too polluted. But to be faor, the best beach in California is in southern California, but it's not in LA, it's Coronado beach in San Diego.

[JosephPorterPitt]

Yamota, that's the beach I was referring to when I said I wouldn't mention it because I didn't want more people there. LOL I love staying at the Hotel del Coronado.

[yamota]

oops! My bad. Everybody forget what I said

[Miss Pip]

I like Kelp noodles

[Californiaguy2007]

I haven't been to Venice Beach in a couple of years but when I was there it was fun and I had a great time.

[JTGJR]

I'm not a fan of Venice, but not because of Kelp and flies. As someone pointed out earlier, this is a naturally occurring event that has been documented in the past few weeks. Here's an article from the Daily Breeze about it happening in Redondo Beach a couple weeks ago.

Swarms of black kelp flies descend on beach areas in Redondo Beach

[Zachary B.]

The flies was just bad luck on your part. We had them down here in the South Bay too. It is just one of those things that happens once in a while. But no, it is definitely not the norm.