Los Angeles Relocation Guide - Antevia

Website: www.weho.orgWest Hollywood's logo illustrates the city's borders.West Hollywood (abbreviated WeHo) is a city in Los Angeles County, California,bordered on the north by the Santa Monica Mountains, on the north and east by theHollywood District of Los Angeles, on the west by the city of Beverly Hills and on southby the Fairfax District of Los Angeles. West Hollywood is the first city in the USA toenact a law banning cat declawing. Council member John Heilman is the city's longestserving council member and has served continuously since 1984 and is currently servinghis sixth term as mayor. The position is mostly a ceremonial post that rotates on anannual basis among the council members.HistoryFor many years, the area that is now the City of West Hollywood was an unincorporatedarea in the midst of the City of Los Angeles that was under the jurisdiction of "thecounty." It was illegal to gamble in the city of Los Angeles, but legal in the county, andin the 1920s many nightclubs and casinos went in along the Sunset Strip in WestHollywood for this reason, specifically to avoid the heavy-handed policing of the LAPD,that had no jurisdiction in WeHo. Since the time the area is not part of the city of LosAngeles, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department is in charge of policing it.Movie people were attracted to this less restricted "county" area and a number ofarchitecturally fine apartment houses and apartment hotels were built. Movie fansthroughout the world knew that Ciro's, the Mocambo, the Trocadero, the Garden ofAllah, the Chateau Marmont, and movie stars could be seen on the Sunset Strip.Eventually, the area and its extravagant night spots lost favor with movie people. But theStrip and its restaurants, bars and clubs, continued to be an attraction for locals and outof-towntourists. In the late 1960s, the Strip was transformed again during the hippiemovement. Young people from all over the country flocked to West Hollywood clubssuch as the Whisky a Go Go and the Troubadour.In the 1960s, a club called Ciro's held the first gay dance nights on Sundays. Mendancing together was illegal in those days but as with the casinos and speakeasies thathad gone before, the laws were not strictly enforced. This tolerance led to more gay clubsafter Ciro's closed and the end of the anti-gay laws that prohibited dancing between twopersons of the same gender in Los Angeles County. Those gay nights at Ciro's were