The Santa Monica City Council has approved a ban on single-use plastic bags.

The council voted 4-0 Tuesday night to approve a ban affecting most retail outlets in the city beginning in September.

Under the ordinance, plastic bags will no longer be available at grocery stores, clothing shops or other retailers. The exception will be restaurants providing food and liquids for takeout. Vendors at the popular Santa Monica Farmers Markets will no longer provide single-use plastic or paper bags.

Heal the Bay, an environmental nonprofit group, called the action "one of the most aggressive" on single-use bags nationwide.

"Sending a powerful message that the plastic pollution plague can be abated, the vote furthers the recent momentum for enacting local bag measures throughout California," the group said in a statement.

Two men were booked into the Santa Monica jail on drug charges after a multi-agency task force seized 47 kilograms of cocaine and $2.3 million in cash, police said Monday.

The task force of federal agents and local police officers uncovered the cash and cocaine Wednesday at a Valencia warehouse after serving search warrants at three Los Angeles-area locations, said the Santa Monica Police Department, whose officers were part of the effort.

Vasile Babuschin and Sergei Souetov, both Canadian citizens, were arrested and booked on narcotics charges, police said.

Babuschin was detained as he arrived at Los Angeles International Airport on a flight from Canada. He led investigators to suspected drug-storage locations, according to police.

[Updated Jan. 18, 10:17 a.m.: An attorney for Babuschin, Ronald Richards of Beverly Hills, rebutted police officials' contention that Babuschin was arrested at LAX, saying Babuschin was already in Southern California at the time of the drug bust. Richards also denied that Babuschin led investigators to  suspected drug-storage locations.]

The money was in a safe that had to be cut open by firefighters.

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-- Robert J. Lopez

Photo: Confiscated cash. Credit: Santa Monica Police Department

Contrary to reports circulating on the Internet, incoming L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy did not lie about teaching courses at Loyola Marymount University, a top college official told the Los Angeles Times.

Deasy was a part-time faculty member in the doctorate program when he also served full time as the superintendent of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, said Shane Martin, dean of the School of Education at Loyola. 

“John was a very successful professor,” Martin said.

The allegation apparently originated with a call to confirm Deasy’s employment, and the caller was told incorrectly there was no record of him having worked there. From there, the allegation went viral.

Martin did not dispute what the caller was told. The school has been changing its recordkeeping system, and complete employment records were not available to everyone who might have performed such a check, he said.

Loyola has one of the region’s leading education and teacher training programs.

Transportation officials have decided to take a closer look at two bidders seeking to build the second phase of the $1.5-billion Expo light-rail line from Culver City to Santa Monica. An initial review of the firms turned up a trail of federal investigations, fraud allegations and past construction problems, officials said.

The Exposition Metro Line Construction Authority has ordered an in-depth performance analysis of the Skanska/Rados and the URS/Shimmick joint ventures. Both are prospective finalists.

“This is important and indicative of a new level of awareness by the board that we should be proactive,” said Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, who is a member of the Expo board and requested the initial review of the bidders.

The inspector general’s office of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority will handle the more detailed analysis, which includes contacting previous clients to assess each company’s performance and responsibility on other construction projects.

Federal investigators in New York are looking at Skanska USA Civil Northwest, a subsidiary of Skanska USA. There are allegations that the subsidiary used front companies to evade requirements that they hire a certain number of subcontractors owned by women, minorities or businesses that have been officially designated as disadvantaged.

Skanska USA, a major construction company, also is the parent company of Skanska USA Civil West, which is interested in participating in the Expo project. Its partner in the joint venture is Steve P. Rados Inc. based in Santa Ana. The inspector general’s initial review did not find anything questionable about Rados’ past performance on contracts.

Skanska executives could not be reached for comment, but Steve S. Rados, co-president of Rados Inc., defended Skanska USA Civil West as a “first-rate outfit” that he had no reason to doubt. He added that he has no problem with the new performance review.

Among other things, the inspector general found that URS Corp. agreed to pay $5 million in damages to the state of Minnesota and $52 million to the victims of the Interstate 35 bridge collapse in Minneapolis three year ago. The report stated that the company was hired to analyze the integrity of the bridge and failed to discover structural defects.

Jamie Tully, a spokesman for URS, defended the firm, saying it is “one of the country’s leading providers of engineering design and construction services for light-rail projects.”

A full story will follow.

-- Dan Weikel

Actress Jaime Pressly was arrested late Wednesday by Santa Monica police on suspicion of driving under the influence and released early Thursday on $15,000 bail.

Pressly, 33, best known for her Golden Globe nominated performance in the television show “My Name is Earl,” was taken into custody about 11:36 p.m. after police officers pulled her over and performed a field sobriety test, Sgt. Jay Tresler said.

Pressly was riding with passengers, but police did not release their names. Police did not release the location of the offense or say whether Pressly agreed to take a Breathalyzer test.

The actress is scheduled to appear in court Feb. 7.

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Photo: Booking photo of Jaime Pressly. Credit: Santa Monica Police Department / Associated Press

Santa Monica police are still investigating whether to charge a driver who struck and killed a 66-year-old man as he walked across Wilshire Boulevard on Thursday night, authorities said.

Herceg Vlado of Santa Monica was walking south across Wilshire Boulevard in a crosswalk near 10th Street about 9 p.m. when a car traveling westbound on the street struck him, according to Sgt. Marty Fine of the Santa Monica Police Department. Vlado was transported to a local hospital, where he died.

The driver, only identified as a 19-year-old male, was questioned and released but could still face charges depending on the results of the investigation, Fine said. The accident was the first fatal traffic collision of 2010 in Santa Monica.

Fine said that in fatal traffic collisions involving alcohol, gross negligence or a hit-and-run, prosecutors usually look to make an arrest quickly. But those factors do not seem to apply to this case and the investigation could take longer, he said. 

“But ultimately charges could be filed,” he said.

That intersection in Santa Monica has no walk signal, but cars usually yield to pedestrians crossing the road, Fine said.

“But depending on the circumstances, pedestrians don’t always have right-of-way,” he said. “Usually when a pedestrian enters a crosswalk with a good amount of distance from a car, the car must stop though.”

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A judge Wednesday issued a temporary restraining order barring Santa Monica from instituting a new taxi franchising system that a group of Armenian American cabdrivers charged discriminated against them.

Judge Robert H. O'Brien gave attorneys until Jan. 7 to show why the preliminary injunction shouldn't be granted in the case filed by the Taxi Drivers Assn. of Santa Monica, which sued the city Tuesday in civil court in downtown Los Angeles.

The association represents five Armenian American-owned or operated cab companies -- and 300 Armenian American cabbies -- who sued Santa Monica after they were all denied franchise licenses with the city.

"If this TRO had not been issued, approximately 300 Armenian American cabdrivers operating within the city of Santa Monica would have their licenses to operate their cabs revoked," said Tamar Arminak of the Geragos & Geragos law firm, which represents the cabbies.

Santa Monica officials could not be reached for comment.

The controversy began in June when the city, after reviewing franchise applications, chose five of 13 cab companies, none of which were Armenian owned or operated.

About 100 cabbies showed up in court Tuesday. Arminak said they were all worried they would be jobless come the new year.

"They are relieved they can continue supporting their families as a result of the court ruling," Arminak said.

-- Andrew Blankstein

Meteorologists are warning about possible damaging flooding in the Los Angeles area in the days before Christmas.

Mike Pigott, a meteorologist with Accuweather.com, said 5 to 7 inches of rain could fall in Los Angeles' coast and valley areas by the end of Wednesday. Projected precipitation is even higher in Orange County, where Anaheim could see up to 9.5 inches during that period.

"I think you guys are going to see a lot of flooding problems," said Pigott.

The storms are being fueled by two surges of subtropical moisture, one arriving Tuesday and the other Wednesday.

Mountain areas burned by recent wildfires have been holding up, with no damaging flooding reported so far this weekend.

On Sunday into Monday, about 1.5 to 3 inches of precipitation is expected to fall on the coast and valleys, said Stuart Seto, weather specialist with the National Weather Service office in Oxnard.

"We still have flash flood watches for the burn areas through his evening," Seto said, "especially because you've already had a lot of rain, and it was pretty consistent from hour to hour."

Between Thursday and Sunday morning, downtown L.A. has received 2.85 inches of rain; Los Angeles International Airport, 2.95; Long Beach, 2.35; Santa Monica, 3.16; Culver City, 2.56; Beverly Hills, 3.80; Northridge, 3.20; Pasadena, 2.65; San Gabriel, 2.42; Whittier, 2.62; San Gabriel Dam, 4.53.

Orange County and the Inland Empire saw substantially less rain, with Huntington Beach seeing 1.61 inches; Costa Mesa, 1.26; Laguna Beach, 1.45; San Juan Capistrano, 1.69; Anaheim, 1.34; Riverside, 0.39; and Ontario, 0.95.

"We got a ground pretty permeated from this slow, consistent rain," Seto said. "On Tuesday and Wednesday ... it looks like it's going to be a pretty significant storm."

Rainfall should taper off by Thursday, and Christmas Eve and early Christmas Day should be partly cloudy. Rain might return by Saturday evening, Seto said. 

Seto said the set of storms pummeling Southern California since Thursday seems to be among the largest that have rolled through since the El Niño storms of early 2005.

The system hammering Southern California is being caused by a large plume of subtropical moisture that is stretching from Asia, which has mixed in with a low-pressure system.

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-- Rong-Gong Lin II

Photo: A fig tree fell over on Centinela Avenue near Venice Boulevard. Credit: Katie Falkenberg For The Times

Minor flooding and auto collisions continued to be a hazard on Southern California roadways Sunday morning, but officials reported few other major problems as a Pacific storm continued to pound Los Angeles.

In the Los Angeles neighborhood of Mar Vista, an enormous fig tree about two stories high fell over on a sidewalk. Its large, gnarly roots were lifted into the air, and its branches leaned precariously close to homes on the 3000 block of South Centinela Avenue.

The 71 freeway in Pomona was closed at Valley Boulevard due to flooding, probably for the rest of the day, California HIghway Patrol Officer Ed Jacobs said. And a vehicle collision after 10 a.m. led officials to declare a Sigalert on the southbound 14 freeway at Newhall Avenue in the Santa Clarita Valley.

Deep in Hollywood Hills West, some mud and soil flow on Astral Drive brought a Los Angeles fire engine company out to the neighborhood, but "it's not a large issue," said Erik Scott, a fire department spokesman. He said the fire agency is ready to set up command posts and is monitoring at-risk neighborhoods.

On Saturday, Long Beach fire crews rescued a 23-year-old woman from the Los Angeles River. About 1:50 p.m., the woman was riding her bicycle at Del Amo Boulevard when she hit some water and the bike slid into the concrete-lined river bank, said Capt. Rich Brandt of the Long Beach Fire Department.

A passing jogger called 911 as she saw the woman bobbing up and down in the river, doing a dog paddle to stay afloat. Fire rescue teams, attached to the riverbank by rope, threw the cyclist a rope and plucked her out at Wardlow Road, about a mile south of where she fell in, Brandt said.

The woman was transported to a hospital for observation and was released in good condition Saturday night.

Power outages were reported all over Southern California. Southern California Edison said more than 11,000 customers were without service at mid-morning, with problems reported in Joshua Tree, Palm Springs, Culver City, Bellflower, La Canada-Flintridge, Montclair, Westlake Village, Ojai and Whittier.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power reported no power outages in its territory Sunday morning.

-- Rong-Gong Lin II

For a long time, misdemeanors were all too easy to come by in Santa Monica. The city’s code required police to dole them out for every violation, even seemingly minor infractions such as riding a bicycle on the sidewalk.

Some offenders complained the misdemeanors -- which require an appearance in court -- were disproportionately harsh.

An ordinance approved by the City Council last week eased the penalties, a move officials say will boost city revenues and relieve the burden on courts.

Now, police and other city workers will have the option to give minor offenders, such as sidewalk-cruising cyclists or those caught loitering in public parking garages, a ticket instead of a court date.

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