Close out your weekend with a recap of the newsiest and most popular Patch articles from last week. Here are the five stories that topped the headlines on Westside Patch sites:
- President Obama is visiting Los Angeles Sunday through Monday morning and Los Angeles Police Department is . To see the LAPD's list of street closures, click here.
- Join the conversation: Was it just us, or was traffic much worse than normal this week? We posed this question to our readers this week and got a lot of responses. In turn, we made some calls to Metro and LADOT to see if there was anything contributing to unusually heavy traffic on the Westside. Did you hit traffic more than normal this week? Tell us in the comments.
- The Santa Monica City Council approved a ban on smoking in new apartments and a policy that will require residents to disclose smoking habits to their landlords — cigarettes and medical marijuana. A second vote to approve the ordinance is required before it is made official.
- A new public art installation in Culver City drew a crowd earlier this week when it was unveiled. The piece, which cost $1.5 million to produce, is a large rainbow arch on the Sony lot. "Rainbow" was inspired by The Wizard of Oz, said Tony Tasset, the artist. To see a video of the artist speaking about the piece, click here.
- Westfield Century City has signaled the end of its free three-hour parking policy, and residents aren't the only ones who are unhappy about it. Shoppers and store employees at the mall are worried it will hurt business and make trips to the mall less convenient. Westfield wants to discourage people from taking advantage of the mall's free parking when they are actually going to another Century City destination. What do you think?
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