I lived on Venus beach in California until 9 yrs old. It was very different than the weirdo place it now is.
Used to walk to the pier in the next town ( Ocean Park I think it was called.) since the Venus pier was burned down yrs before but never cleaned up.
It was fashioned after Venus Italy and even had canals build but it was not a success so was left to get rundown.
All this was quite an adventure for a kid back in the 40's.