Residents, whose home border on the Palisades Recreation Center, have notified LAPD of the ongoing issues of teens congregating late Friday and Saturday nights.
Residents say there is underage drinking, illegal fireworks and cars that race in and out of the parking lot at the Rec Center.
M-80 explosives, which are illegal, have been set off in Veterans Gardens on several occasions, destroying a trash can.
There have also been teens drinking in the park after hours. Last weekend [April 28-29], one neighbor called a security company, who came to the park around 2:15 a.m. and shut down a party.
“My husband counted 40 kids,” the resident wrote in an email to the police and cc’d it to CTN. “We did not call the non-emergency [LAPD] hotline because the wait times have been very long.”
Senior Lead Officer Brian Espin responded, “I am aware of the kids (most likely) who are doing donuts in the streets in front of the Park. There are a few areas where our patrol units have been directed to check on when they are available for the extra patrol.
“Unfortunately, our patrols units can’t be at all the locations all the time,” Espin said. “The kids drive around and look for the open spots where nobody is around. Please pass this information around. If anyone is able to get a license plate on the vehicles, I can look into contacting the vehicle owners to address the safety concerns.”
At the last Park Advisory Board meeting, Palisades Recreation Director Jasmine Dowlatshahi said there’s been a lot of teenagers gathering in the park on Friday nights for “fight” club, which has been occurring in the lower picnic area.
There are usually between 30 and 40 teens, and they fight using hair spray and lighters. “We’ve called the police three different times and they came,” she said, and noted there has also been a problem with graffiti in the park, too.