The People's Code

One of my closest friends since eighth grade comes to visit me at school once a year and she always wants to visit Venice Beach. After her third visit this past spring break when she asked to go to Venice Beach again I replied, “Seriously, I’m so over Venice. There’s just hella tourists.” Despite me trying to discourage our visit to Venice she found us a ride with a friend, Cyrus, that used to live two blocks from Venice Beach.

Once we parked in his secret spot at the very beginning of the boardwalk, we dropped into an art gallery on a side street. He explained how there’s always secret art show events and how he made sure to visit for every new exhibit. We then left the gallery and began our stroll down the boardwalk.

As we walked past the muscle men working out, the sleeping dog with sunglasses, the skate park, and the slightly chubby, but super tan man wearing a red speedo Cyrus says, “Everybody here comes out and does the same thing everyday. Most people only know Venice for the street shows for tourists, but there’s people here who really know each other and treat each other like family.”

After Cyrus’s comment I began to watch in detail the interactions of the many people at Venice Beach and I could see a clear distinction between the Venice “family,” the tourists, and the Los Angeles locals, but not Venice regulars.

The most eye opening interaction I witnessed was a man attempting to steal from one of the vendors on the most popular street that has the glowing “VENICE” sign hanging above. A man, who appeared to be extremely under the influence, snatched a pair of sunglasses and took off running down the street. The vendor left his shop to chase him, along with two other locals. As the thief ran across the street he dropped his phone in the street and someone yelled, “Don’t worry about it he dropped his phone. You can have that.” The thief stopped running and the vendor caught up with him; he handed over the sunglasses and the vendor took them, but then he punched the thief in his face. The thief then pushed him, but before the fight could escalate any further several locals, including someone I’d just met, Joey, ran over to hold down the thief. The vendor returned to his shop and Joey along with one other Venice local talked to the guy for a few minutes and told him to just stay away. The thief lingered around for a while, walking in circles, and I was sure to keep a close eye on him.

After the incident was solved Cyrus said, “You see this is why you don’t police...For what so that they can further separate the people? They roughed him up, talked to him and now everything’s good.”

“It’s just the people’s code man, that’s all you need out here,” said Joey.

After about 5 minutes I said, “Look he’s coming back!” Joey immediately went to go tell the thief to leave again, but the he explained that he just wanted to apologize. Joey walked him over to the vendor, he apologized and then paid for the glasses he’d just tried to steal. This may be a rare occasion, but the outcome speaks volumes to how much better the world could be if everyone honored the “people’s code.”