Seated under an umbrella, Teresa Robles and her friend Dixie Moore laughed at stories of each other’s adventures, Robles telling of the time she first came to Venice and fell in love.
Not with a man, but with this stretch of seaside — where she slept for much of last year and would return if that were allowed.
Robles loved letting her dog, Notcho, roam as she made art in her tent and woke up with waves crashing against the shore. That dream ran up against a different reality last month when the city began to enforce rules against pitching tents on the grassy strip along Ocean Front Walk — in hopes of letting vendors return and reducing the chaos that had defined the oceanfront strip in recent months.
Both Robles and Moore had slept near where they were sitting and chatting. Not anymore.