People and Events

At least one San Fernando Valley hair stylist doesn’t like the way her hair looks. For one thing, she complained, the stranger who cut it left her with large patches of near baldness.

The unidentified lady called Sebastian International Inc., the chic Woodland Hills cosmetics and hair care company, because the man had claimed to represent that firm.

He doesn’t, said their attorney, Richard Flom.

The lawyer said the mystery barber has telephoned other salons in the Valley to say he was a Sebastian model coordinator looking for people on whom to try new hair styles. It is not known how many he got to work on.

In the one case, at least, Flom said Wednesday, “he really butchered it. It was very uneven and unprofessional.” Having promised the volunteer that Sebastian would pay her $150, he left her with the lousy haircut and a worthless IOU.

She was not happy.

Flom could only guess at the man’s motive but said he uses the alias “Steve Lewis” and is “a big, burly fellow” weighing about 270 pounds. He has short red hair, a beard, mustache and glasses, Flom said.

He added, “And he doesn’t cut hair very well.”

Pasadena’s new automated traffic cop has been on the job for a week now and by Wednesday had nailed about 250 speeders.

At least that was the estimate of traffic Sgt. C.E. Gray, who said the newly activated photographic radar machine is being moved from location to location on Pasadena’s 22 “problem streets” where amateur Mario Andrettis have drawn attention of both the police and unhappy residents.

The device, which received a highly publicized one-month test last year, is a camera attached to a radar gun. When it spots a vehicle going over the posted limit, it takes a picture--license plate, driver and all. The registered owner soon receives a speeding citation from the company that supplies the gear and processes the photos.

Pasadena is the first city in California to utilize the device. Only one other community in the nation (Paradise Valley, Ariz., of all places) has put it into operation.

Not all motorists like the idea. “Entrapment” and “Orwellian” are a couple of the terms used.

The photo-radar machine is mounted in the rear window of an unmarked Chevy Blazer, but Gray said there is no attempt to hide the mechanical cop or disguise it. There are even signs posted to warn motorists about it.

“Our main intent,” he said, “is to get people to slow down.”

Some things come off and some just don’t.

The current “Special Housing Edition” of the L.A. Architect, the publication of the Los Angeles chapter of the American Institute of Architects, dealt extensively with the problem of housing the homeless.

The article discussed possible solutions--such as connecting old cargo containers to build a housing complex.

So on Wednesday, the 2,200-member organization scheduled an afternoon architects’ bus tour of several shelters on Skid Row to see the problems first hand. Everybody was to meet at 1 p.m. at the county Department of Community and Senior Citizens Services parking structure on Shatto Place.

One architect showed up.

So did some reporters.

The van didn’t. (Someone thinks the driver may have gotten the time wrong and gone to lunch).

The parking guard didn’t know anything about it and sent people away.

Maybe next time . . .

It’s getting to be rattlesnake time again, warns Los Angeles animal control chief Robert Rush, who points out that warm weather tends to bring the poisonous slitherers out of their holes to sun themselves on rocks or loll around in the shade when it’s too hot.

For those who have somehow missed the warnings all these years, Rush points out that foothill and mountain areas “are particularly hazardous.” Children should be warned against playing or hiking in “potentially dangerous areas.”

High-top boots are a great idea, Rush says.

Anyone coming across a snake in a residential area, Rush advises, should call the Department of Animal Regulation.

He adds: “Don’t try to kill the snake yourself. It may even be a harmless, non-venomous snake, which is very important to our ecology and will actually help get rid of rattlesnakes by eating their food.”