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O.C. restaurant known for ignoring COVID precautions puts up anti-vaccine sign at Venice Beach

Tony Roman, an Orange County business owner known as a provocateur on COVID-19 safety protocols, posted an anti-vaccination message on the side of a Venice apartment building.(James Rainey / Los Angeles Times)

A little Huntington Beach political attitude has been transplanted north to Venice Beach in recent weeks, and the reviews from locals and tourists have not been winning.

Strollers, bikers and runners on Ocean Front Walk expressed everything from sadness to disgust to pronounced disinterest in a giant sign along the famous boardwalk that suggests people should disdain vaccines that combat the COVID-19 pandemic.


“Leave the Vax, Take the Cannoli” reads an expansive wall mural on the side of an apartment building, three stories above street level in the heart of Venice’s visitor-heavy boardwalk. The message comes from a Huntington Beach restaurant, whose owner has said he believes that face masks and vaccine mandates are a tyrannical theft of the public’s liberty.

Tony Roman previously posted signs at his Basilico’s Pasta e Vino restaurant saying that those wearing masks had to remove them to be served. Last year, he paid for a billboard message on La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles, reiterating his anti-mask view.

Read the full story on LATimes.com.