Hermosa Beach News

Once again it’s time for the day of the year when (in some parts of the world, at least) green has less to do with the environment but a lot to do with party: it’s St Patrick’s Day!

To make sure you get your share of green beer and other traditional drinks, Patrick Malloy’s opens at 8 AM, not just on Monday March 17th  but also on the Saturday and Sunday before as well. They will serve a breakfast they call Eggs and Kegs, with $4 pitchers of Bloody Mary and Screwdrivers.

If you never been out in Hermosa Beach on St. Patrick’s Day, be prepared for crowds and lots of “happy” people. Some of the pubs actually remove all tables to be able to let in more people and they have beautiful and sexy drink girls making rounds to make sure you get your fill even if you can’t reach the bar. It’s an experience …

If you’re not into the bar scene, maybe you like a parade instead. In Hermosa Beach, it starts at 11 AM Saturday 15th at the Pier Plaza. You can expect to see plenty of floats, marching bands, and classic cars. It usually draws roughly 3,000 spectators, so come early. 

Hermosa Beach is one of the great California surf spots, and on February 9 some very talented surfers showed off their skills in the South Bay Surf League’s 15th annual All Star Meet by the pier.

Easy Reader has an article about the event with the details and some great photos. 

Being so close to Hollywood, it’s not surprising that so many celebrities live in, or have lived in, Hermosa Beach. One of them is Jack Black, with movies like High Fidelity, Saving Silverman, Orange County, School of Rock, King Kong, and Nacho Libre on his resume.

Jack Black grow up in Hermosa Beach. He tells us a bit about his somewhat troubled youth and his career in the movie business in an interview made by Times Online, made in relation to his latest movie, Be Kind Rewind.

How will people in 2108 view our time? Will they look at the first decade of the twenty-first century as the time when we finally realized the damage our fossil fuel addiction is doing the environment and acted to find alternatives, or will they point to the inactions in this decade as the cause for the apocalyptic time they live in?

It’s impossible to say what life will be like in a hundred years, when Hermosa Beach celebrates its bicentennial. But if anyone is still around to celebrate it, the time capsule buried under Pier Plaza in January will at least give them some clues to what we did here in 2008. According to an article in the Easy Reader, the time capsule holds items such as photos, a cell phone, a lawn bowling ball, and a DVD with an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. I bet the latter item will puzzle them.

This year, “green living” is “in,” but does it have to be so boring? Not at all; you can party the green way at a Green Drinks event. These are informal gatherings where you can talk over a drink with environmentalists, people with green businesses, and people who are just interested in what can be done to improve our environment.

Siel, an LA Times blogger, tells us she attends the Green Drinks in Culver City, but there are Green Drinks events in Hermosa Beach as well, at 7 PM the second Thursday each month at Sangria. And yes, there’s plenty of parking space for your SUV.

The city of Hermosa Beach will hold a Fitness Dedication Ceremony Saturday, Feb. 9, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., officially introducing new exercise stations to the Greenbelt. The four new stations replace ones that had deteriorated after 30 years of use, with funding for the stations provided by the city’s nonprofit organizations. According to The Beach Reporter, Kiwanis Club member Laura Raymond said placing these new exercise stations in the Greenbelt is a chance for the nonprofit groups to give back to the community.

If you’ve walked on the Strand through Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach, you know some of the houses are huge, resembling Italian villas or European castles, spreading over two lots. But that’s nothing compared to the 16,000 square-foot home now under construction just north of Hermosa Beach.

LA Times reports today that while home prices are dropping throughout the Southland,  prices are climbing in beach communities, and newcomers are building higher and wider. In response, South Bay cities like Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach are adopting restrictions on “mansionization.”

Easy Reader reports that a large chunk of Hermosa Beach downtown is for sale.

When Quentin L. “Boots” Thelen passed away in July 2007, the property he owned that holds Mermaid Restaurant, Poop Deck bar and Good Stuff restaurant, as well as a second stretch of property along the Pier Plaza containing Cantina Real restaurant, Lappert’s Ice Cream, Pier Surf shop and Avanti Jewelers, was inherited by his children. They are now putting the two stretches of property up for sale for $27 million and $6.5 million, respectively.

Scotty’s on the Strand, on the other side of Pier Avenue, is also for sale, and the owners of the Sea Sprite Motel have said they are ”actively listening” to developers who hope to buy their sprawling property that dominates much of the waterfront.

Manhattan Beach Confidential reported in October 2007 that Britney Spears had been seen house hunting in Hermosa Beach.

Now The Real Estalker  reports that Britney Spears has actually bought a nice 4-5 bedrooms, 5,785 square feet house at 2805 Tennyson Place in Hermosa Beach. The house reportedly even features a vintage Irish pub. 

If this is true, I just hope it doesn’t mean Hermosa Beach will be overrun with paparazzi, media and the generally curious.