LOS ANGELES — For a lot of Venice die-hards, the thing that irked them most about Snapchat was the security guards.

When the company behind the disappearing-messages app took over multiple properties on the beach as it expanded, starting in 2012, it also posted guards who would shoo away anyone who wasn’t an employee and who lingered too long near a Snapchat entrance. In an oceanfront community still defined by hippie eccentricity, that didn’t go over well.

“They were not particularly good neighbors,” said Fran Solomon , a raspy-voiced four-decade resident of Venice who was a member of the original Venice community council. “I understand the need for security, but it was not the gestalt of the area, if you know what I mean.”

This counterculture mecca on the Pacific Ocean has always attracted freethinkers and visionaries. Look at Abbot Kinney, the developer who bought much of the area in 1905 to create a “Venice in America.” He transformed a marshy plot of land into a veritable Coney Island of the West Coast, wooing crowds with dance halls, canals, amusement rides and a saltwater plunge.