Don’t hide a lobster in a baby stroller in Santa Monica

Good morning. It’s Friday, July 17. Expect a nice break in the heat wave — highs will fall to the mid-80s and stay there all weekend.

It was categorically summer on Wednesday afternoon at the Santa Monica Pier. The wooden boards thundered with foot traffic — tourists housing churros, winning stuffed Pikachus, and getting their names written on grains of rice.

Little did many of them know they were at a crime scene. On Monday night, officers at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife had made a major bust: six poachers had allegedly caught 34 spiny lobsters out of season, before being caught themselves.

The accused had tried to sneak the lobsters off the pier in duffel bags, backpacks, and a baby stroller, but were foiled by officers with the help of lobster-sniffing dogs. It was a sting — or pinch — operation: “Officers planned a concentrated enforcement effort at this specific location,” Cort Klopping, a department spokesperson, said in an email.

After the seizure, the officers posed for a photo with the lobsters like proud coaches of a youth basketball team.

The contraband crustaceans were ultimately returned to the ocean alive. But the threats on their lives will likely follow them there.

Yes, California has lobsters. The California spiny can be found from Monterey Bay to the waters off the southern border of Mexico. Do not confuse them with their cold-water cousins from Maine — spiny lobsters don’t have front claws, and all of their edible meat is in their tail.

But the street value of those tails makes the spiny lobster a popular catch in the local fishing industry: legal and otherwise. “There is… a black market for lobsters,” said Klopping.

As a result, the DFW considers the lobster with extreme care — its Recreational Lobster Fishing FAQ reads a bit like a prison warden’s list of rules for yard time. No, you cannot use a “tickle stick” to coax a lobster out of a hiding spot. No, you may not remove the tail of your lobsters while at sea or on the boat launch ramp — lobsters must be kept “in a whole, measurable condition until prepared for immediate consumption.”

Are you allowed to carry a lobster for your son? Yes, but “your son needs to be in the immediate vicinity - walking down the pier with you, traveling home together in the car, etc.”

What is it about the spiny lobsters that deserves such regulatory intensity? Whitney Thompson, a Seasonal Education Program Coordinator at Roundhouse Aquarium at the end of the Manhattan Beach Pier, told me that when it comes to marine life, these are uniquely valuable — and vulnerable — creatures.

Their importance to the local ecosystem, she said, comes from how they feed. Spiny lobsters eat live mussels and help control their population. They also forage on dead fish, keeping the delicious carcass nutrients from disseminating and forming algae blooms.

Multiple lobsters caught during the pier bust were egg-bearing females, an especially forbidden catch. Females can produce 50,000 to 800,000 eggs in each clutch, said Thompson. After hatching, the larvae, each smaller than a grain of rice with a tourist’s name on it, spend about a year just floating around in the water. The vast majority are eaten — serving an important role in the coastal food chain.

A dozen people were fishing at the pier on Wednesday, the hottest day of the year so far. Most of them had heard about the bust — it was part of the day’s small talk agenda, along with the fisherman who was yanked off the pier by a shark over the weekend.

JT Stones, who works in customer service for an airline at LAX, brings his gear to the pier about once a week. He rarely fishes for spiny lobster, he said, but did catch one a few months ago and ate it himself, cooked by his mom.

Stones has, however, noticed an uptick in the presence of Fish and Wildlife personnel on the pier — earlier that afternoon, he’d just pulled in a halibut when an officer appeared next to him wielding a measuring tool. It was undersized, so he threw it back.

Have you received a “ticket tax refund” email from LA28, saying your purchase included a “city ticket tax that was partially charged in error” and offering a refund?

An L.A. Material reader flagged the email to us, wondering if it was legitimate since it asks users to enter bank information for the refund. The topic has also been a source of questions on social media, with many wondering whether it’s a scam.

According to an LA28 spokesperson, the emails are legitimate.

L.A. Material readers have selected the final two restaurants competing for L.A. Material’s Culinary Cup: Sara’s Empanadas (Paraguay) vs. Angel’s Tijuana Tacos (Mexico).

Voting will close at the end of Saturday 7/18, so cast your ballot today:

LOB OF SUPPORT: City Controller Kenneth Mejia endorsed Councilmember Nithya Raman in her bid to unseat Mayor Karen Bass. L.A. Material’s Matt Hamilton has the story. 

BISQUE-Y BUSINESS: Netflix stock plummeted in after-hours trading following a mixed earnings report, where the streamer announced increased viewership and revenue but forecasted its lowest year-over-year growth since 2023 for next quarter.

BUTTER HOMES AND GARDENS: An L.A. Times analysis ranks the most and least affordable cities in California. As you might expect, none of the most affordable are in L.A. County. The least affordable? Prominently featured in this very newsletter!

WATER MAIN(E) BREAK: A massive leak from a 110-year-old LADWP trunk line flooded huge swaths of West Hollywood yesterday and opened up an enormous sinkhole on Sunset Boulevard and Holloway Drive. It’s still unclear how long it will take to fix the street or the pipe.

AND JUSTICE FOR TRAWL: As part of a series on consequential L.A. County court cases, the LA Local looks at Jones v. City of Los Angeles, a 2006 federal case that curtailed the ability of police to cite or jail people for sleeping on the street.

WEAR A SHELL-MET: This month’s CicLAvia goes down on Sunday, following a 6.6-mile “Meet the Hollywoods” route between East Hollywood and WeHo. (It avoids the sinkhole).

THE MOLT-EN BOOT: Options abound for watching the Spain vs. Argentina World Cup final this Sunday: the Autry Museum is hosting an outdoor screening, Santa Monica is shutting down multiple blocks for an open-streets event, and Bebe Rexha will perform at the Downtown Burbank Fan Zone.

LIFE BRINES A WAY: Street Food Cinema is not simply screening Jurassic Park this Saturday night at California State Historic Park in Chinatown — they are also presenting a dinosaur-themed drone show finale. Music and street food will be on offer as well.

EVERYTHING MUST ROE: For antiquers, Tall Rob’s Estate Sales advertises a “SUPER UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY TO BECOME AN ‘AMERICAN PICKER’” this weekend at a home in West Hills that the now-deceased owner filled floor-to-ceiling with tchotchkes and knickknacks. All items will be available for purchase today and tomorrow. “THIS IS A SALE THAT YOU WOULD WANT TO WEAR GLOVES TO,” Tall Rob cautions/entices.

For today’s peek inside our subscriber-only Discord server, @Donovan submits a proud plate to the #vanityplates channel.

AND FINALLY… A poem to pair with your morning coffee: "With Drizzled Warm Butter, Intensely Rendered" by Dick Allen.

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