SIGN THE PETITION: NO MORE National Chains on Ocean Front Walk in Venice CA!

JOIN THE PROTEST: NO MORE Franchise National Chain STORES on Ocean Front Walk!

Snapchat Is changing Venice from an eclectic community to a corporate campus!  Over 1800 employees are transported in vans across 35 different locations in Venice.  They have approximately over 305,000 square feet.  They have 8 vans driving around 17 hours a day! They illegally reside in residences.  Security guards create the feeling of a police state.  They illegally use apartments as offices.  They've pushed out small businesses, removed Beach Access signs, and have displaced residential tenants.  

On the morning of August 2, 2016 residents of Brooks Avenue woke up to a hostile take-over of their block by Lighthouse Brooks LLC as they started construction of  742-748 Brooks Avenue WITHOUT A COASTAL DEVELOPMENT PERMIT. The excessive scale of this project and complete mismanagement crescendoed throughout the day resulting in a very angry community and the terribly sad murder of one of LightHouse Brooks contractors, Marvin Ponce.

Our Mission

Venice, originally called "Venice of America," was founded by Abbot Kinney in 1905 as a beach resort town. Venice Beach is unique from any other city in LA and the US, and we need to protect the community and culture, as it is an actual work of art on display for all to enjoy.

The Venice Dogz constantly work with the Venice community to: 

Find the much needed “Balance” between preserving the integrity of Venice Beach’s history, culture, growth and development.

Work towards “Transparency, Accountability and Management” between the community, city and the homeless in historic Venice Beach.

Establish “Mediation and Mitigation” between the Venice community and technology companies who want to truly be part of the Venice community. 

"Preserve" what is left of the historic community and culture. Protect the arts, and the beachfronts. Embrace tourism, affordable housing, business start-ups and our current tech boom as a positive change, but with balance and transparency.

. 

The Goals

The Venice Dogz - An Alliance for the Preservation of Venice is a community activist group which uses outreach, research, education and restoration to protect and preserve the historic culture of Venice Beach, CA.

Some of the Venice's greatest landscapes are threatened by increased gentrification, illegal development and the depletion of the arts culture. We aim to protect the history, culture and development of Venice from inappropriate property uses, zone changes, over-development and coastal issues, but we cannot achieve our goals alone. Find out how you can help.

Venice Beach: History of the Art Culture

Venice is known as a hangout for the creative and the artistic. In the 1950s and 1960s, Venice became a center for the Beat generation. There was an explosion of poetry and art. Major participants included Stuart Perkoff, John Thomas, Frank T. Rios, Tony Scibella, Lawrence Lipton, John Haag, Saul White, Robert Farrington, Philomene Long, and Tom Sewell. Other notable Venice Poets 20th and 21st Century: Millicent Borges Accardi, Linda Albertano, Richard Beban, Molly Bendall, Terry Blackhawk, Kate Braverman, Susie Bright, Derrick Brown, Charles Bukowski, Luis Campos, Exene Cervenka, Neeli Cherkovski, Jeanette Clough, Wanda Coleman, Catherine Daly, Fred Dewey, Robert Duncan, Bob Flanagan, Amy Gerstler, S.A. Griffin, Bob Kaufman, Gluefish Lou, Bill Margolis, Ellyn Maybe, Rod McKuen, Viggo Mortensen, Holly Prado, Jack Skelley, Patti Smith, Arnold Springer, David St. John, Amber Tamblyn, Elizabeth Treadwell, David Trinidad, Tom Waits.

Designers Charles and Ray Eames had their offices at the Bay Cities Garage on Abbot Kinney Boulevard from 1943 on, when it was still part of Washington Boulevard; Eames products were also manufactured there until the 1950s. The brick building's interior was redesigned by Frank Israel in 1990 as a creative workspace, opening up the interior and creating sightlines all the way through the building. Originally located at the Venice home of Pritzker Prize–winning architect and SCI-Arc founder Thom Mayne, the Architecture Gallery was in existence for just ten weeks in 1979 and featured new work by then-emerging architects Frank Gehry, Eric Owen Moss, and Morphosis. Constructed on a long, narrow lot in 1981, the Indiana Avenue Houses/Arnoldi Triplex was designed Frank Gehry in partnership with artists Laddie Dill and Charles Arnoldi, Frank Gehry has designed several well-known houses in Venice, including the Jane Spiller House (completed 1979) and the Norton House (completed 1984) on Venice Beach. In 1994, sculptor Robert Graham designed a fortress-like art studio and residence for himself and his wife, actress Anjelica Huston, on Windward Avenue.

In the 1970s, prominent performance artist Chris Burden created some of his early, groundbreaking work in Venice, such as Trans-fixed. Other notable artists who maintained studios in the area include Charles Arnoldi, Jean-Michel Basquiat, John Baldessari, Larry Bell, Billy Al Bengston, James Georgopoulos, Dennis Hopper, and Ed Ruscha. Organized by the Hammer Museum over the course of one weekend in 2012, the open-air Venice Beach Biennial (in reference to the Venice Biennale in Italy) brought together 87 artists, including site-specific projects by established artists like Evan Holloway, Barbara Kruger as well as boardwalk veteran Arthure Moore. In the 1980s and 1990s Venice Beach became a mecca for street performing turning it into a tourist attraction that rivaled many of southern California's other destinations. Chainsaw jugglers, acrobats and comics like Michael Colyar could be seen on a daily basis. Many performers like the Jim Rose Circus got their start on the boardwalk.

Venice was where legendary rock band The Doors were formed in 1965 by UCLA alums and Venice bohemians Ray Manzarek and Jim Morrison. The Doors would go on to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and are considered one of the greatest rock groups of all time, with Morrison being considered one of the greatest rock frontmen. Venice would also be the birthplace of another legendary rock band in the 1980s in Jane's Addiction. Perry Farrell, frontman and founder of Lollapalooza, was a longtime Venice resident until 2010. Venice in the 1980s also had a large number of bands playing music known as crossover thrash, a hardcore punk/thrash metal musical hybrid. The most notable of these bands is Suicidal Tendencies. Other Venice bands such as X, Beowülf, No Mercy, and Excel were also featured on the rare compilation album Welcome to Venice.