Year in Review Part 4: October
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WEDNESDAY The Year in Business Comics and Puzzles 12.30.20 Page 6. Pages 8 and 9 Volume 20 Issue 40 @smdailypress @smdailypress Santa Monica Daily Press smdp.com Pop Culture in (ugh) 2020, from Year in Review Part 4: the bizarre to the sublime JOCELYN NOVECK window, and ballet dancers AP National Writer performed “Swan Lake” from their October - December bathtubs. There were Zoom proms, And now, for our annual look at drive-in concerts and a host of cast the year in pop culture ... Oh, wait. reunions. This was 2020. The year everything And then there was the TikTok stopped cold. guy on the skateboard. Drinking Well, not really. Truth is, people Ocean Spray from the bottle. Singing turned to culture of all kinds in Fleetwood Mac. For all of us. 2020 — highbrow and lowbrow A totally selective, appropriately — to satisfy varied and sometimes scatterbrained journey through some conflicting needs: Distraction, cultural moments of 2020: inspiration, consolation, escapism, hope. And those needs evolved: If JANUARY: we began lockdown in March by The year starts like any other ... addictively binge-watching the darkly as if! At the GOLDEN GLOBES, bizarre “Tiger King,” by early winter RICKY GERVAIS hosts for the fifth we were transfixed by a different sort time and seems eager to get home. of animal: the graceful octopod of MICHELLE WILLIAMS speaks “My Octopus Teacher,” extending her passionately of a woman’s right to tentacles to make connections that choose, PATRICIA ARQUETTE seemed achingly poignant in a time about voting, and JOAQUIN when mere hugs between humans PHOENIX about … something. The are taboo. world mourns the sudden loss of And while live entertainment was KOBE BRYANT, and ponders a royal tragically curtailed due to the raging first when HARRY and MEGHAN pandemic, performers often found step back from their duties. What will their own stages, in endlessly creative it all mean? File Photo ways. A Broadway star serenaded ELECTION: Santa Monicans came out in large numbers for the November election. health workers from his apartment SEE CULTURE PAGE 11 The Daily Press is summarizing households to socialize outdoors, voting against the project, the year’s news as it was covered in an expansion of rules aimed at developers must head to the our pages. Today, we are covering people tempted to have even larger California Coastal Commission ‘First Cow,’ ‘Nomadland’ top the fourth quarter of the year. gatherings around Halloween, for approval. Thanksgiving and end-of-year OCTOBER holidays. The goal was not to AP’s best films of 2020 Local street performers were encourage larger gatherings, Mayor Kevin McKeown banned from entertaining tourists Newsom said, but to recognize alongside 42 other mayors in JAKE COYLE AND LINDSEY BAHR an ending. Here are our picks for the visiting Santa Monica’s Third the increasing pressure for get- the California Mayors Coalition AP Film Writers best movies of 2020: Street Promenade, Pier and Transit togethers and provide ways for signed a letter to Governor Mall during peak afternoon and people to act appropriately. Newsom urging him to provide Good movies kept coming in 2020, JAKE COYLE evening shopping hours, as part more equitable financial relief even when everything else stopped. In 1. “First Cow”: Any sweetness of the city’s Twenty-Seventh to cities. There was a significant a year that often felt like its own kind of in life in Kelly Reichardt’s radiant Supplement. While the recent The Fairmont Miramar project inequity in the state’s allocation cataclysmic Hollywood production, frontier fable is both fleeting and safer-at-home orders had affected received approval from City of $500 million in federal funding the movies — even if relegated to eternal. Set in the Oregon Territory of the number of acts performing in Councilmembers, meaning Santa from the CARES Act between smaller screens — were as necessary the 1820s, it’s a portrait of a friendship recent months, performers had Monica’s 4.5-acre landmarked large and small cities. Six of as ever. It was the year of the drive-in, forged, as it ought to be, on kindness found ways to continue with a few property featuring could soon be California’s thirteen cities with a the backyard-bedsheet screening and and baked goods. The movie’s harsh creative adaptations. renovated to include new guest population of over 300,000 were the streaming service. But wherever Western landscape, where two poor rooms, expanded retail space, allocated funding equal to $174 they played, the best films of the year travelers (played by John Magaro and more. Following a 4-2 vote, per person, however, cities like offered some escape and connection: and Orion Lee) suggests a critique California eased its coronavirus with Councilmembers Kevin the possibility of grace, a spark of of capitalism as much as Ken Loach’s restrictions to allow up to three McKeown and Sue Himmelrich SEE OCTOBER PAGE 2 fury — and something the rest of the world couldn’t offer: the assurance of SEE FILMS PAGE 6 Gary Limjap TAXES (310) 586-0339 ALL FORMS, ALL TYPES, ALL STATES In today’s real estate climate ... BACK TAXES • BOOKKEEPING • SMALL BUSINESS Experience counts! SAMUEL B. MOSES, CPA (310) 395-9922 [email protected] 100 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1800Santa Monica 90401 www.garylimjap.com CalRE # 00927151 News 2 WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2020 Visit us online at www.smdp.com by City Councilmembers, allowing local of Venice has called Venice home but a fire homeowners to rent their homes for less than threatened to destroy a century’s worth of a year as long as they meet certain criteria. history. Residents believe it wasn’t accidental. Council first tackled medium term rentals Los Angeles Fire Department officials in August when it adopted an ordinance responded to a fire near the location and mandating all residential rental properties in recorded it as rubbish fire from part of a the city must be rented unfurnished to natural homeless encampment. persons, who intend to occupy the unit as their primary residence for longer than a year. Santa Monica’s Target held its grand opening at 1610 Wilshire. Word first spread Nearly 20 miles of new protected bike about a new Target opening in the location lanes are planned for Santa Monica streets back in January when the building’s previous after local City Councilmembers approved an occupant, Staples, announced it would be update to the city’s Bike Action Plan. closing. Santa Monica Police Chief Cynthia Renaud L.A. County recorded a record number retired from her position and was replaced be of white supremacist hate crimes and crimes replaced by former chief Jacqueline Seabrooks against the transgender community in its who returned as Interim Chief. 2019 Hate Crimes Report. The report showed File image that there were 524 hate crimes recorded in CANDIDATES: There were 21 candidates for City Council making the local race the most com- 2019, which is only one crime more than petitive in the county. The Santa Monica College Board delayed those recorded in 2018, but it marks a 36 discussions relating to campus equity after percent increase in hate crimes from 2013. OCTOBER ballots for the 2020 election in public trash a study session triggered strong emotional FROM PAGE 1 bins this week alongside what appeared to reactions from officials. At the special study be other mail from nearby homes. Osvaldo session held in September, staff, students Santa Monica City Council instituted a Santa Monica that have a population under Jimenez found the first batch of ballots in and college stakeholders gathered to discuss one-year moratorium on the operation of 300,000 only received $12.28 per resident. an Alley between 20th and 21st in the Pico aspects of policy and leadership that are key autonomous delivery vehicles on sidewalks in neighborhood around 4:30 p.m. and he found to promoting equity and guided pathways response to a company called CyanRobotics, a second batch on Virginia Ave in a recycling reforms. which began deploying contactless food A Santa Monica based drug investigation bin in front of the nearby church later that delivery robots in August. Since the company has yielded one arrest in addition to fentanyl, night. did not apply for a business license prior to heroin, prescription pills and seizure of With the prohibition on fast food restaurants deploying its devices, staff sent the company $296,000 in cash. According to SMPD, officers in the Third Street Promenade set to expire a cease and desist letter, which forced the began investigating the suspect following a The Santa Monica City Attorney’s Office in November, Santa Monica’s Planning company to immediately stop all deployments drug sale in city limits. chose the OIR Group to lead an after-action Commission considered amendments that in the city. review for the looting, riots and protests of would make the moratorium on fast food uses May 31. City officials said publicly that the with frontage on the Promenade permanent. The Prize Patrol from Publishers Clearing first of two reports would be finished in A court hearing reopened settlement House traveled to Santa Monica on Friday August of this year but the police department proceedings for the lawsuit over alleged to award $10,000 to local resident Cheryl said it was unable to prepare the document Two legal decisions reaffirmed Santa illegal school supply fees charged by the Santa Pappas. and handle regular police work. In response, Monica’s ability to shutter its local airport at Monica-Malibu Unified School District. The council authorized staff to hire a third party the end of 2028. In January 2017, the city and court needs to assign a new third party referee company to combine both reports into a the Federal Aviation Administration entered and decide on procedures for adjudicating the As America undergoes another reckoning single document.