

Violent crime in Hollywood is up 21 percent in the last year. (Photo by Archie Tucker via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr)

Since last October, violent crime in Hollywood has gone up 21 percent. With more and more people moving into the area, city officials are trying to figure out how to manage the residential boom and the nightclub scene.

LAPD Capt. Peter Zarcone told the L.A. Times that most of the crimes come courtesy of drunk people spilling out of Hollywood's many bars and clubs. Violent crime has spiked 21 percent through October 10 compared to the same time last year. Citywide, aggravated assaults are up 36.8 percent.

There's also a big increase in the number of people who call Hollywood home. The amount of available rentals in the area has tripled since 2000, and there are now about 7,650 people who live in Hollywood, as opposed to 2,550 in 2000.

L.A. City Councilman Mitch O'Farrell said that it's important to make Hollywood "a neighborhood that is safe, clean and hospitable to its residents." On Halloween, the neighborhood's busiest night, police plan to send an extra 300 officers to the area.

Some of these residents complain about the noise and general chaos of the nightclub crowd, and others just want a compromise.

"It's necessary that someone on the 10th floor [of an residential building] should be able to hear the exact lyrics of the song in the club. That tells me that you could lower it enough and the people in the club could still be able to hear and dance to the music," neighbor Paul Zambito said.

Leron Gubler, president and CEO of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, pointed out that the clubs were there first. "When nobody was investing in Hollywood, the clubs were here and they were kind of the first phase of revitalizing Hollywood." However, he noted, "Now that the area is improving, we do have a few clubs that are causing problems."

Both Cashmere and Sound have been cited recently, but mostly for construction issues.

A glance back at the last couple of years reveals a number of violent incidents that might make anyone shy away from including "Hollywood" as a checked box on their Westside Rentals account, but not all of them are the direct result of people drinking and getting wild at clubs.

In January, a man was shot and killed by a robber on N. Cahuenga Boulevard and Selma Avenue, and another man was shot while sitting in his car on Sunset Boulevard that same month. In April, a man was found stabbed to death near the Egyptian Theatre and Musso & Frank Grill. In June, two men got into a road rage brawl at the same intersection. In August, a 22-year-old DJ was beaten to death at Cashmere, a Hollywood nightclub, while defending his friend.In July, a man walked up behind a woman on Sunset Boulevard and shot her in the back of the head over a financial dispute amounting to only a few hundred dollars.

Last October, a man was fatally attacked at Hollywood and Highland while on his way home from the Sunset Strip Music Festival. That Halloween, there was a brutal fight outside the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.