Pasadena police ID man killed in Monday night shooting
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Thursday, October 26-November 01, 2023
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LA County Board of Supervisors advances California oil companies face tougher enforcement regulations on gun, ammo stores under new law By City News Service
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he Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors tentatively approved an ordinance Tuesday that would impose additional regulations on gun and ammunition dealers, including requirements for adults to accompany minors in such stores and mandating annual sales reports and fingerprint logs of purchasers. "We need to prevent guns from falling into the wrong hands and part of that effort is ensuring gun and ammunition dealers are acting responsibly," Supervisor Janice Hahn, who proposed the measure, said in a statement after the vote. "These are commonsense regulations that will make sure gun dealers have basic security measures in place, maintain inventory and keep records of who they sell guns and ammunition to." The ordinance, which will return to the board Nov. 7 for a final vote, will apply to retailers of guns and ammunition in unincorporated areas. According to Hahn's office, there are currently 18 gun dealers and two ammunition-only retailers in unin-
By Janet Wilson, The Desert Sun, ProPublica This story was originally published by ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
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COVID-19 or other financial hardship," according to a statement by LA Housing Department spokeswoman Sharon Sandow. There is a short window
alifornia will soon have more authority to fine oil companies that cause major spills or other hazards. The new law, which will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2024, was authored in response to a Desert Sun and ProPublica probe that found the state agency charged with regulating fossil fuel companies had a spotty enforcement record and had collected no fines in 2020. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 631 on Oct. 7. The law increases penalties to as much as $70,000 per day for continuing violations, and it gives state regulators new abilities to request criminal enforcement. “This measure ensures California has 21st-century enforcement tools to protect communities from oil operators that violate the law, endanger public health and threaten the environment,” said Assemblymember Gregg Hart, who authored the bill. “AB 631 will strengthen compliance and deter the pattern of treating violations as the cost of doing business. I applaud Gov. Newsom for signing this significant legislation.” Under the new law, California’s oil regulator, the California Geologic Energy Management Division, or CalGEM, can refer cases to local prosecutors and ask a Superior Court judge to compel operators to correct violations that might threaten public health, safety and the environment. The oil and gas supervisor, who heads CalGEM, can also for the first time recover all response, prosecution and enforcement costs from the petroleum companies. Critics have long questioned CalGEM’s willingness to exercise its enforcement authority. In 2021, The Desert Sun and ProPublica found that the agency had imposed few fines above $5,000, despite enhanced powers — and had yet to collect a fine above $35,000. Officials at the agency had vowed to improve enforcement transparency, and CalGEM’s public affairs office said last week that the agency has collected nearly $1.2 million for 24 civil penalty orders in 2022-23. But it did not respond to questions for this article about whether penalties assessed against oil companies from 2018 to 2020 were ever paid, despite promises by officials presented with those findings to improve enforcement transparency. In an unsigned email, the office also did not answer whether Chevron had paid any or all of a $2.7 million penalty for a 2019 spill, known as a “surface expression” because raw crude shoots straight out of the ground. Chevron had protested the fine at the time, saying there was no safety
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corporated areas. Under the measure: -- ammunition dealers would be required to obtain a business license and comply with the same requirements as gun dealers; -- minors would be prohibited in stores that sell guns and ammunition unless they are accompanied by an adult, with "sight separation" required in mixed-use stores; and -- stores would be required to maintain an annual sales report, keep a fingerprint
log of people who purchase guns or ammunition, prepare weekly inventory reports, install security cameras and display signs warning customers about the "risks associated with access to guns." The measure would also increase license application and renewal fees for such retailers, and require the county Treasurer and Tax Collector to publicly post a list of stores whose licenses have been suspended or revoked. The ordinance is one of four that Hahn first proposed
last year, and the third to be adopted. Earlier this year, the board voted to ban the sale of .50-caliber firearms and to prohibit the carrying of guns at county facilities such as ball fields and parks, with the exception of law-enforcement officers and military personnel. A fourth ordinance still under development would require a 1,000-foot buffer zone between gun stores and sensitive locations such as schools, day care centers, parks and playgrounds.
LA accepting applications from landlords for Emergency Renters Assistance Program
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he city of Los Angeles is accepting applications from "small landlords" who own 12 units or less for a rental assistance program aimed to prevent homelessness, housing officials announced Monday.
By Staff The city's Measure United to House LA, or Measure ULA, provides the funding for the Emergency Renters Assistance Program that covers back rent owed to small landlords. "The City continues its efforts to prevent individu-
als from becoming unhoused through this program which provides financial assistance to small landlords who own 12 units or less and who have low-income residential renters with up to six months of unpaid rent as a result of