According to LAOBSERVED, The county’s Department of Beaches and Harbors announced on its website that the traditional July 4 fireworks in the Marina won’t be held this year. Budget “curtailments” were blamed. The Marina fireworks have been, I’m pretty sure, among the best attended on the Westside. They were shot from a barge in the main channel and were visible for miles around, drawing large crowds to the beach on the Marina Peninsula and on the Playa Del Rey side of the channel. I guess the upside is that, unlike when the fireworks were happening, you will be able to drive near the Marina and Venice Beach this July 4.

For years, Santa Monica’s Fourth of July fireworks were IT – the best and the brightest, a beloved L.A. tradition. But, following a scuffle and a shooting one Fourth, the City cancelled them…forever.

Unfortunately, tragically, there are shootings and scuffles throughout the year here, and canceling the fireworks did nothing to stem or stop them, it just denied hundreds of thousands of people the multiple pleasures of fireworks on the Fourth, on the beach. We still get calls from people inquiring about them.