The Van Nuys Courthouse is smack dab in the middle of the dirty heart of the city of Van Nuys (just off of Van Nuys Boulevard). Perhaps the only dirtier more dangerous part of the San Fernando Valley is just west of Van Nuys – Panorama City.

Once inside the whole-block municipal complex things are a different story. Most of the buildings are fairly new – and fairly modern in appearance.

Once I made my way to the clerk-line things started to resemble the locale though. I observed 13 adults waiting in line and 8 children. Quite a ratio – especially considering we were all there because of traffic violations. You’d think single-mothers (sorry for assuming – but this was Van Nuys and the mothers were barely old enough to drink) would drive better to protect their children. There were so many kids running around unattended I could not even discern which kid belonged to which mother.

Out of fifteen windows (of which only three were actually open) there were two reserved specifically for “GC Services” cases. And of course only one of those was open. When I finally got my turn I was told that I could “pay now or get a court date – what you gonna do?”

I’ll be in court on January 24th 2008.