One Popular California Beach Has More Cleanliness Complaints Than Any Other In The World

With its famous Boardwalk, charming canals, and mythical Abbot Kinney Boulevard, the iconic neighborhood of Venice, California is the capital of West Coast cool. A palm tree-lined community nestled along the Pacific Ocean, Venice is teeming with eclectic homes, eccentric residents, essential eateries, and unique, bougie boutiques that make it worthy of placing on this list of the most incredible California spots locals say you need to visit in your lifetime. The neighborhood also has some of LA's most coveted real estate, being the third most expensive place to live in the city. So it makes sense to expect this wealthy, celebrity-filled enclave with one of the world's most filmed beaches to also boast some of LA's most pristine, resort-worthy coastline.

Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the dirty truth. According to a recent study of 200 beaches by software firm Cloudsearch, Venice Beach has racked up more cleanliness complaints than any other beach in the world. The Cloudsearch study compiled its data by mining Tripadvisor reviews of the world's beaches for words like "dirty," "overcrowded," and "noise." They then whittled these mentions down into a "complaint score" based on how frequently they appeared for each beach. 

Heavily-touristy Waikiki Beach came out on top, scoring 100/100 for complaints ranging from cleanliness to overcrowding. Venice Beach came in a close second on overall complaints, ranking 89.7/100. However, it actually took the number one spot atop the world's Top 10 Dirtiest Beaches, with over 60% of complaints citing its lack of cleanliness. "Litter everywhere," exclaimed one Tripadvisor reviewer who employed three exclamation points in a review entitled "Lovely but littering is out of control."

Venice Beach has always been a neighborhood of juxtapositions. It's where the artistic counter-culture that fostered the founding of legendary rock band The Doors co-exists with the corporate mainstream — Google was headquartered on Main Street for 15 years in a binocular-shaped building designed by Frank Gehry. This iconic California community exuding chic European charm on the Venice canals also has a very contrary and serious homelessness problem. Sadly, in recent years, hundreds of people have been living in tents along the beach. Despite repeated clean-up efforts the problem persists, contributing greatly to the beach's overwhelming trash and unsanitary conditions.

Another major culprit behind Venice's filth is a seeming lack of maintenance crews to collect garbage and clean public restrooms, despite the 2024 creation of a Coastal Care+ team to do just that. Compounding this is the absence of law enforcement to ticket offenders for things like littering, which is punishable in LA County with fines starting at $250. Considering Venice Beach receives an average of 30,000 visitors per day, or a whopping 11 million per year, it's easy to see how a lack of maintenance and enforcement allows the filth to pile up.

To be fair, Venice Beach earned an A+ on the annual 2023 beach pollution report by Heal the Bay, one of LA's most respected environmental non-profits that's ardent about protecting water quality. In sharp contrast, the neighboring beach at Santa Monica Pier is actually the second most polluted waters in the entire state of California. So while the Cloudsearch study cites dirt, litter, and foul smells along the Boardwalk and sand as the reason for Venice Beach's cleanliness issues — swimming, splashing, and surfing in the ocean here all get a major thumbs up.