LA Mayoral Candidate Proposes Backyard BBQ Ban to Fight Wildfires, Gets Raked Over the Coals

During last Wednesday's Los Angeles mayoral debate, bad-a** candidate Spencer Pratt destroyed his opponent, LA City Councilwoman Nithya Raman (D-District 4), with his response to Raman's gaslighting about Pratt and incumbent mayor Karen Bass (D) teaming up against her. Raman made the incredulous claim that they would have an easier chance running against each other than running against her.

RedState has extensively documented Raman's horrible record in her six years on the city council. At one town hall, her own constituents booed her after she dismissed their safety concerns over a homeless encampment being near a school.

WATCH:

BOOED BY HER OWN VOTERS: Socialist Politician Says Drug Encampments Next to Schools “Don’t Matter” — Then Rolls Her Eyes

Watch this. Nithya Raman gets BOOED by her own constituents when she claims it “doesn’t matter” if homeless drug encampments are cleared out — or left right next to a school. Then she rolls her eyes like the people complaining are the problem.

This is exactly why Spencer Pratt must win.

These socialists are completely insane. They care more about protecting tents than protecting kids. No wonder everyone hates her.

Share this if you’re done with the madness. 🔥

Pratt's epic response during the debate deflated some of Raman's pomposity, as RedState's Bob Hoge documented. 

Pratt: "First off, Mayor Bass and I are definitely not working together. I blame this person for burning my house and my parents' house and my town and my neighbors down. I am not working with Mayor Bass."

"Second off, if I wanna run against anybody, it would be the councilmember who is terrible. Mayor Bass has at least been a mayor for almost 4 years and has, as she talked about earlier, the unions, all the unions endorse Mayor Bass. Do you think it's easier to run against the incumbent mayor with all the unions or a random city council member who's been a failure for 6 years? I would MUCH RATHER run against Councilwoman Raman! Thank you very much."

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Read More: Spencer Pratt Crushes LA Mayoral Debate – Viewers Say He Smoked the Field

EXCLUSIVE: LA City Councilwoman Nithya Raman Tells Business Owner to Stop Sending Graphic Photos of Destruction Wrought by Violent Homeless

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After that scorching, Raman should have crawled under one of those homeless tents under the 101 Freeway in her district. Even the betting markets knew Pratt had smoked her. Only last week, they had Raman just slightly below Bass and ahead of Pratt. After the debate, Raman's fortunes sank like a stone. 

But Raman refuses to go quietly. Instead, she appeared on some D-list podcast hosted by her favorite Democrat Socialists, and claimed that "real" solutions were needed for L.A.'s problems, and if not presented, people would turn to fascism and "mini-Trumps" like Spencer Pratt. <insert *eyeroll* emoji>

WATCH:

Notice that Raman didn't bother to offer one solution. She just did what she tried to do in the debate: name-call and label. This is how afraid Raman is of Pratt: There was a second debate that was scheduled for this week. Bass bowed out, claiming she needed to be in Sacramento. That would have left Raman to face off against Pratt all by herself. You would think Raman would have jumped at the chance to discuss those pressing solutions she claims that L.A. citizens care about. Instead, like the cowardly person she is, Raman also backed out, proving she has no solutions, just slurs and talking points. 

 

Raman went back to business as usual at the council and then decided this brain fart of an idea to combat the wildfires was just the ticket. Mind you, she (and Bass) claim that wildfires are a result of climate change, and take no responsibility for their complicity in the horrible conditions that led up to the Palisades fires, where Pratt and thousands of others lost their homes. No, Raman decided that what would solve this problem of wildfires is for Angeleans to rein in their backyard BBQs during Red Flag days.

It would be laughable if it weren't so terrible. 

Los Angeles mayoral hopeful Nithya Raman wanted to ban backyard barbecues for residents during certain high fire danger days across the city.

Raman introduced a motion Wednesday directing city officials to examine emergency restrictions on grilling during Red Flag Warning days, when high winds and dry conditions significantly increase wildfire danger across Los Angeles.

The proposal specifically asks officials to consider possible limits on backyard barbecues, fire pits and other open flames in residential neighborhoods during those high-risk weather events.

Part of Raman's district encompasses the San Fernando Valley, which gets into the 100s during the summer, when a number of Red Flag events occur. The beautiful part about Southern California is that the temperature does dip considerably in the evening, so most people want to enjoy their backyards and eat al fresco, which often includes firing up the grill. When we lived in the Valley, there was no way I was turning on an oven, so grilling was all we did.

So, this proposal is not only Raman's typically dismissive and tone-deaf response to her constituents, but it is also beyond stupid. A fellow Democrat councilmember felt the same, so she blocked the proposal and then presented a motion to strip the BBQ ban completely.

Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, who represents much of the San Fernando Valley, stepped in and successfully blocked the proposal by introducing a separate motion that stripped Raman’s barbecue ban.

“The last thing Angelenos need is a ban on hosting a carne asada in their own backyard,” Rodriguez told The California Post.

She said the proposal felt completely disconnected from how families across Los Angeles actually live. A Red Flag Warning was put in place from Aug 20-24 in 2025 when temps across LA soared to as high as 100 fahrenheit.

I rest my case, but this is all Raman and her leftist ilk know how to do: take other people's earned money through taxation and fraud, while limiting any freedoms one could enjoy. When was the last time someone's backyard BBQ started a wildfire? I haven't been able to find one instance. However, there are a number of instances of fires started in the very homeless encampments that Raman deems more important than children's safety.

This mid-April article from local ABC7 confirms this fact, citing over 16,000 Los Angeles Fire Department reports logged about fires started at homeless encampments — an average of 46 PER DAY.

Los Angeles firefighters have repeatedly warned that rising call volumes and chronic understaffing are slowing their response times, and new data shows one major driver -- encampment fires.

Every time the L.A. Fire Department responds to a blaze, crews must file a report and mark whether it was "Homeless or Encampment Related." A records request for every such fire since 2020 returned a staggering total -- more than 75,000 incidents.

The numbers fluctuate month-to-month, but the trend is unmistakable. In 2020, LAFD logged 7,165 homeless-related fires.

From January through mid-December 2025, that number climbed to 16,982, an average of 46 fires every day in the city of Los Angeles.

Most of these fires are small and quickly extinguished, but some spread with devastating consequences.

But this is how callous the bean-brained Raman and Mayor Bass are. To blithely claim climate change is the culprit of wildfires, despite mounting evidence that exposes the city's malfeasance and total disregard. Evidence like a phone call two days before the Palisades fires, between Bass and Los Angeles resident John Alle. A conversation that Alle somehow decided to record. 

In this phone discussion, Alle warned Bass about the predicted winds and the dry conditions, being ripe for fire events. Alle was most concerned that with the homeless's penchant for setting fires in their encampments, it could easily ignite and spread bigger fires. We know the sad history. Like Pratt, Alle and his parents lost their homes in the Palisades fires.

With Bass seeking reelection, Alle felt it was important to release the audio, which he did in late April. 

A recorded call involving Karen Bass, made days before the Palisades Fire, is resurfacing ahead of the primary, with John Alle now identifying himself as the person who recorded it.

Alle says he warned about dangerous winds and fire risk during the call.

Bass’ campaign strongly disputes that, saying the call focused on planned law enforcement activity in MacArthur Park, not fire danger.

Here's the rub: What needs to be done, and what Raman, in her role as a city council member, is capable of doing, she refuses to do. But she'll attempt a verbal jig and blame everyone but herself for her failures. Spencer Pratt exposed her game at the debate, and after this sorry attempt by Raman at a supposed solution, Pratt used his social media game to rake her over the BBQ coals. I cannot stop laughing, and we all will be waiting for the next AI ad featuring Pratt to drop. Brain trusts like Raman are low-hanging fruit.