Last year at the fireworks I remember seeing a lot of police. This year their presence wasn’t as obvious. At one point, early on, there were two cops near the trash can where we were sitting, they left after speaking with some woman who seemed to have lost her granddaughter. (There was only one announcement for a child who had been ‘found’.)

Later on, after it had begun to get dark, there were no cops around – and that’s when we needed them. People around us began to smoke. Specifically one person sitting behind us. We weren’t sure, but we thought there was a law or rule that said that smoking wasn’t allowed in parks, or at least close to the play area (which is where we were). Without confirmed knowledge of the law we didn’t want to say anything.

Off I went in search of police officers to ask them. There were none around us, so I decided to go towards this area that had a large truck type thing that said LAPD on it. It took a while and lots of change of directions because of the way people set up their blankets on the grass, but I got there. There were two CHP officers along the fence that separated the rest of us from LAPD so I went to ask them. One was very cute, the other not so much. They were unaware of there being a rule and weren’t being very helpful. I insisted, asking them about being close to the kids area. At that point the cute one decided to go ask an LAPD officer who informed him that smoking was not allowed ANYWHERE in the park.

I called my brother (because who knew how long it was going to take me to get back to where they were) to let him know so that he could tell the guy who was smoking. By that point, though, he had finished the cig. He started another one later on, before the fireworks, and my brother let him know. The guy immediately put the cig out and it wasn’t an issue.

Was this worth a whole post? I don’t know, but I did it!