Sign of the (L.A.) Times

It's come to this. The Los Angeles Times website seems now to think the Silver Lake section of L.A. is a city unto itself. Misquoting an item from The Eastsider L.A., which gets it right, an entry today on the Times' L.A. Now blog says:

Leaf blower drama: A 1998 Silver Lake ordinance bans the use of gas leaf blowers near homes, but some residents are complaining that the loud contraptions are making a resurgence.

Of course, the leaf blower law is a City of Los Angeles ordinance — Silver Lake is no more able to pass a law than the corner of Vanowen and DeSoto. The leaf blower ban was pretty controversial in its day. There are clips galore about it in the Times' archives. It's not neccesarily the Times' blogger's fault: Anthony Pesce was editor of the Daily Bruin at UCLA just last year. It's his editors who threw him into the fire, and who apparently haven't noticed the error all day. So here's the ironic part: the blogger whose accurate post was misinterpreted, Jesus Sanchez, is a veteran journalist who was trained at the Times and who used to be one of two main fulltime writers for the Times blog that now utilizes Pesce. Along the way the Times decided to go cheaper, less experienced and less informed about Los Angeles. Some days that works out OK. Other days, not so much.