This is John Batchler. Conversation with my colleague Jeff Bliss's Pacific Watch.

Bay Watch, a very popular show from the 20th century, reawakened for California,

and yet the ambition was to shoot the show on Venice Beach.

However, while they were promising tax breaks, there were then regulations and rules and guidelines

and refusals and trouble in Venice Beach with the homeless and the drugs.

And now, well, listen to Jeff.

Now is unclear.

It would have been a great idea to revive the area,

to have Venice Beach be the background of a TV show

that after all is meant to lighten the heart.

And maybe it'll happen, maybe not.

I'm not sure.

Here's Jeff.

Yeah, it's, you know, for the TV folks,

this is a great outdoor setting. It just makes sense. Yeah, it's, you know, for the, for the TV folks, this is a great outdoor setting.

It just makes sense.

It's so much of what Southern California is about.

And of course, they can shoot up the coast and see Malibu or shoot down the coast all the way down to Long Beach and Orange County on a clear day.

You know, the Santa Monica appear with all the, you know, the amusements on it, the giant Ferris wheel that it's known for. And yet they can't use that location. So where are they going to go next? This is, I was talking with a person who is below the line, another one, somebody's behind the scenes, an assistant director. And they were talking about how hopeful they were for this particular production to come to L.A.

That they thought it was going to open up some new avenues for production and for the city.

But it appears that it's just going to go the same route that it always does or has in the past decade or so.

You're going to find a lot of these productions aren't even going to ever consider California or L.A. again because they think, why am I going to pay the higher taxes, the higher fees, and deal with all the rigmar role that you do when you're there, only to have it shots and problems ruined by violence nearby in Venice or Santa Monica.

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