In 1968, Louise Huebner cast a spell from the Hollywood Bowl to increase the “sexual vitality of the County of Los Angeles.” One week before, County Supervisor Ernest Debs had given Huebner the title of the Official Witch of Los Angeles. Soon thereafter, as Huebner was making the rounds in local press, the supervisor’s office recanted, saying the title was just a gag and sent her a cease and desist letter to stop using the title. Huebner responded, threatening to “de-spell” the County, saying, ““What with smog and freeways being what they are, I shudder to think of what the De-Spelling could do to devastate the County.”

The County took no further action, and when Huebner passed away in September 2014, she took her title as the first and only Official Witch of Los Angeles with her, and along with it, her curse.

While that crisis may have been averted, there are still other curses afflicting the City of Angels, put on us by vexed residents. All this sunshine doesn’t come without a price, I suppose.

Here’s a look at the curses affecting Los Angeles:

• The most well known curse in Los Angeles is the one placed over Griffith Park by the niece of ranch owner Don Los Feliz, who, in 1863, was so upset she didn’t receive the land when he died that she placed a hex over all future land owners. The land, which became Griffith Park, has been plagued by fire and drought, and those associated in the transfer and ownership of land have had a bad history of being shot or killed. Colonel Griffith J. Griffith, who late in his life gifted the land to the City of Los Angeles, was shot himself by a business rival, and later shot his own wife in a drunken stupor (she survived).
• In the mid-1800s, William Money, the founder of the Moneyan Institute, LA’s first commune, placed a curse on Los Angeles for it to fall into the ocean after local newspaper refused to print some of his apocalyptic predictions.
• Rudolph Valentino has been said to still haunt several of his former homes and playspots around Los Angeles as his spirit hunts for a ring, believed to be cursed, that belonged to him in life that is now considered missing. After he died, his ring was passed on to his lover, who became gravely ill in its possession. She passed it onto an actor friend, who was shot to death days later. Another owner fatally hit by a truck. A burglar was shot and killed by a cop during an attempted burglary of the ring, and a bank where the ring was held “faced two robberies, a fire, and a cashier’s strike,” and has since gone missing. Read more of this tale at Blumhouse.com.
• Several injuries and even the untimely deaths of several players has been attributed to a curse that was on The Los Angeles Angeles from the mid-’70s til they won the World Series in 2002, allegedly due to the Anaheim stadium having been built on a Native American burial ground. The LA Weekly consulted a shaman to confirm if the LA Lakers are cursed. There is mounting evidence that the LA Clippers are also cursed. (I supposed only time will tell if the Rams will suffer the same fate).

By the way, if you’re personally hit with a curse, Los Angeles based witch “Cauldron Kitty” has a $289 “curse removal spell.” She takes MasterCard and Visa.