COMMUNITY PROFILES
Overcoming drug and alcohol addiction hasn’t been easy for Steven Luciano, who has been clean for four years.
The 36-year-old father of two is a national sales manager for Famous Stars and Straps, a clothing line popular among youths that embraces hip-hop culture. Luciano is also a former gang member who served eight years in prison for robbery and drug possession, but he wants Santa Monica’s youths to know — especially those who have not had an easy start — the obstacles they face can be overcome.
That’s why Luciano said he accompanied local school board member Oscar de la Torre to Santa Monica High School the week following the Friday, April 15, brawl involving several Latino and black students that caused the campus to go on lockdown and required back-up units from neighboring police agencies. In the aftermath of the fights, Luciano agreed to go to Samohi and share his story with students struggling in the school system, to encourage them to pave a path for themselves other than the hard road he has taken.
However, when de la Torre, Luciano and another guest arrived on campus on Wednesday, April 20, they were asked to leave. In a report that detailed the incident, a Santa Monica Police officer at the scene identified Luciano as “Big Lucky” from Santa Monica’s 17th Street Gang.
The police department said it had specific information it received last year about “Big Lucky” being a “shot caller” for the gang, ordering young gang members to go into other cities and commit assaults.
In addition to the allegations, Luciano, with his tattoos visible, seemed to be annoying some of the black students on campus, some of whom in the report claimed they were going to “call their boys, too.”
Luciano left the campus as requested by the police, but he felt the controversy that swelled after the incident misrepresented who he is and what he set out to do.
Tell us about your background. “I have two children that live with me half the time, and they live with their mom half the time. We’re divorced. I have an 11 1/2-year-old boy and a 7-year-old daughter.
“I grew up in LA with my mom, then, when I started high school, I moved to Santa Monica and lived with my father... they were divorced when I was 7. I have an older sister.
“I went to Carthay Circle Elementary School in Los Angeles on Olympic, and I went to John Burrows Junior High School in Los Angeles. By the time I was heading into high school, my parents wanted me in the Santa Monica city schools because they had a better, a little better, of an educational system there. So I moved into my father’s house in ’82, who lived on Ocean Park. I went to Santa Monica High School.
“I didn’t graduate. Yeah, I was involved in trouble. The average, ditching school and this type of thing. Yeah, I got into trouble. I wasn’t a great student.”
Have you ever been involved in a gang? “I have a back history of being involved with a gang in SM.”
Would that be the 17th Street Gang? “Just say I have a history in the city of Santa Monica with gangs.”
Gotcha. And about how old were you when you started getting involved with that?
“I was about 16 when I started being involved. About four years ago, I changed my life around. I stopped becoming any type of active gang member or involving myself in any type of illegal or gang activities.”
So at 16 you start getting involved, and by the time you’re 33, you basically got out and were no longer involved. How did you do that?
“I spent some time going back and forth in prison. I lost a lot of things in my life, and I was an alcoholic and drug addict, which led me down a lot of wrong paths and made a lot of wrong choices, and after coming out of prison at the end of 2000, I started thinking about wanting to change my life. The first step was recovering from alcohol and an active drug addiction that started when I was 15.”
What were you in and out of prison for? “I was in from robbery to drug possession.”
About how much time altogether have you been incarcerated?
“Almost eight years... most of the ’90s.”
How about prison? Anything you think people ought to know about that?
“It’s a negative place. Some people formulate how to be better criminals, and the drug addiction and alcoholism takes place there, and it gets more and more magnified the more times you go back. And a lot of people get locked up and caught up in that cycle, and I’m one of those people that got caught up in that cycle.”
Would you say prison is hopeless? “I definitely wouldn’t say that. I would never say that it’s hopeless. And today I’m an active part in working in prisons, and we’re trying a new direction on helping, counseling and education within the prison. Trying to help some of these gen-tlemen and women that are in prison change their lives when they get out. A solution, and it’s changing, slowly but surely.”
How did you begin to turn your life around?
“I got involved with a transitional living home called Walden House in downtown LA which deals with men coming in and out of prison... repeat offenders. It’s a therapeutic community, and they deal with men putting their lives back together, and their families back together, getting off of drugs and alcohol, and becoming productive citizens, showing up for their kids, their parents, their siblings, and giving back to the community and changing lives.
“You know, it was a year-long process, and that’s what I decided to do, and I ended up taking a one-step program and really getting involved in the communities that surround me, not only Santa Monica, but East LA, downtown LA, working with the Los Angeles Mission, working with the Casa Maravia, East LA Community Center. I’m involved in three different anonymous programs — I’m a secretary and I’m a treasurer for the Casa Maravia Christmas Drive.
“I just decided to get really involved with making a difference, and I continuously work at the Walden House in downtown LA. I do seminars, relapse prevention courses, and I’m also involved in CGA, which is a men’s 12-step program within the prison. I was just at Folsom, youth Folsom prison a couple weeks ago, and I was at Mule Creek the week before that working with criminals and gang members turning their lives around. As well, you know, I’m involved in the Pico Youth & Family Center, working as a mentor, starting a case load.
“The Pico Youth & Family Center is really trying to work with a lot of the racial tensions and a lot of the tensions in general that go on with our community through our youth, and helping to support, and really getting involved with that as well.”
Was there a particular point that you decided you needed to change your life around?
“I think I hit rock bottom a lot of times in my life, but I think there was a specific moment in my life where I had a moment of clarity, if you want to call it that, and I had to lose a lot and I had to go through a lot of loss in my life to get to the point where I wanted to change.
“And that’s the reason I’m out there working with youths, because I would hope that some of the youths today could hear what I have to say, and not have to experience the degree and the length that I had to go to get right. If I were in the community center working with some kids, and one of the kids hears the message earlier than 33 years old, hopefully that’s made a difference, and that’s what I’m about and that’s what the emphasis is about for me today.”
How long have you been sober? “Almost four years.”
Do you think that a lot of the programs available for drug and alcohol addiction work?
“I would say 99.9 percent of them work. It’s not the treatment that is usually the problem. It’s the people. You get what you put into anything. And if you’re not ready to stop, nothing’s going to help you. But I still have hope for those people, too, that hopefully the message will get through to them. But when you’re ready to stop, most of those programs are designed to help you, and I think they do. I encourage them, and I believe very much in them.”
Do you think the gang problem is getting any worse?
“I think that definitely it’s a problem that’s growing, it’s getting more intense, it’s getting more violent. It’s a lot more violent than it was 20 years ago. And I would have to say there’s not one problem and there’s not one cause of it. It can be a lot of different things, from not being educated on a lot of different things to what we put in our media.
“It’s a combination of a lot of different things, and it all comes back to education, to taking the time to help out our community. It takes a lot of work, and it takes it from a lot of different angles and all that it takes is one person to stand up and wanna start to make a difference, and other people will follow.
“This is a problem that didn’t occur overnight, and it’s not going to get solved overnight. But today I definitely think that people who have lived in that lifestyle of active drug addiction, gang, criminal life style that have reformed their lives have something extraordinary to offer, to not only to youth, but to people who are so caught up in that lifestyle.”
What do former gang members and ex-convicts have to bring to the table?
“I think one of the most important things is identification, and I think that for somebody to be able to hear you and get the message, they have to be able to identify, to be able to have an open mind and hear what you have to say. So this is a newer approach. It’s definitely not a scared-straight approach. That’s not what we’re doing. It’s personal testimony, it’s guidance, it’s problem solving, it’s self-esteem building and support. And that takes a community and a lot of people in a community to stand up and wanna make a difference.
“It takes integrity. And today there’s not a lot of people with a lot of integrity, but that’s what it takes to make a difference. And I’m going to do what I have to do on a daily basis for the community into getting into a positive attitude.”
How do you make a difference? “I recently went to Daniels West Junior High School in West LA doing a presentation for students there, educating them and opening up the floor. Me and another speaker are talking about our lives and what’s gone on in our lives, what change happened, where we came from, where we’re at today and after we’re done speaking we’ll open up the floor for questions and answers.
“We talk about how to look for parents’ support, how to get kids involved in more productive things, mentoring, different types of projects like that that we’re all working on, and offer some solutions to families, communities, students that there is another way.
“We talk and identify with some of these people in the community who are parents and letting them know what part they can play in making positive change.
“We’re also doing something this month at St. Anne’s Church in Santa Monica, which is the same type of forum. There will be a few more speakers and men of women of different race and color, and going through their lives, where they came from, what changed, what happened, where they’re at today and opening up the floor. And offering some support and maybe educating some of these parents on what’s going on out there today and what are some things we can do differently in hopes for a different outcome.”
Can you tell us a little bit about what happened on the Samohi campus?
“I got invited to Samohi by Oscar de la Torre, a school board member, after I’d been working at the youth center for a few weeks. He approached me and said, ‘How would you like to come down to the school during lunch hour maybe we could talk to some of the youth... They know you from the youth center — black and Mexican and white.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, that’d be great,’ and I decided to bring one of my best friends who is a graphic artist... a designer for Nike. He’s a very successful, popular music artist. He’s big in the music industry. Very well known by a lot of Mexican, black and white kids. They know who he is. His name is Mr. Cartoon.
“We went down there together with Oscar, we talked to some of the youths, and we got down to the school and as soon as we got to the school, black, Mexican and white kids were approaching us from the moment we got onto campus.
“Some of them knew me and were shaking my hand, asked what I was doing there, and some of them knew Mark, the other gentleman that was with me, and they knew Oscar. Some of the conversations and dialogue that started prior to us being asked to leave was identifying with these kids and letting them know that we gotta get along. It’s crazy that police have to show up just to keep everybody getting along. And really identifying and letting them know the type of work and job and friends and what I do in my community with people of every color and race.
“And this is part of regular life. These children are faced with something that they’re going to face in the real world. They need to learn how to deal, interacting with other races now. And it’s just a stage for what’s coming up in the future. And that was really what we were trying to get across. And my friend that I brought with me is a huge artist in the black community, and he was identifying with a lot of black kids and Mexican kids, letting them know, ‘How’s that gonna look where I can’t work with 50 Cent or this guy or that guy? I gotta get along with everybody, ya know.’ And that’s really what it was about that day.
“And, you know, as I said, the dialogue got started, and we had a lot of kids of different color and race there, really with their guard down, open to hear what we had to say, standing next to each other. And right when it pretty much started getting rolling, we got asked to leave. Me and my friend said ‘OK,’ and that was really the end of it... the end of what happened. And that’s the story in a nutshell.”
Do you feel there was any tension added by your being there?
“I never saw anything. It was a situation where, I don’t know how to put it into words. Everyone had their guard down. It was getting to be real smooth. I never saw any black kids getting tense. What I will say, obviously us being tattooed and foreign people coming onto that yard was probably a little new and a little shocking. When you have a situation in which a lot of kids are crowding around, it’s possible to interpret that situation differently. But me being there, there was definitely no tension. None that I could see. It was getting to be a good situation, but those things happen sometimes.
“I invite the Santa Monica Police Chief to come to the presentation at St. Anne’s because we think that would be positive. We will definitely like to follow up with what happened with a presentation at Santa Monica High School, after we take the necessary protocol. Santa Monica has a great school system, there are a lot of people who want to get in it, but there is a feeling among minorities there needs to be more minority representation among the administrators.”
What do you do for a living? “I own a retail clothing store, on Melrose, me and my partner. I also own a small clothing production company where we manufacture clothes, manufactures in China and shipped all over the world. I’m also a national sales manager for a national clothing brand, called Famous Stars and Straps. I’ve been involved in the clothing business since 1991, and I’ve had couple of small breaks since, which we’ve talked about early on. I delegate all of the sales and sales force throughout the United States. Then I handle all overseas distribution deals.
“It’s a decent-sized company, a $17 million company at this point, and we’re growing and it’s good. I’m constantly traveling on business to Germany and Japan and New York and Canada, back and forth. I’m gone a lot. But this is my profession. This is what I do. I have a pretty reputable background in that business.
“That’s really what I’m about. Besides my business, the work that I do, that’s really what I’m about today. I’m really about my community. My job, my family, working on the community, that’s my priority. We’ve got to have a love for each other, and nothing is going to throw me off track from doing that.
“I have a girlfriend right now that is very supportive of me. She has a 15-year-old daughter that I take along with me.
“I was the head coach for the Angels and the Cubs, and now I’m an assistant coach for a north Venice league. I played baseball at Rancho Park for five years. I’ve also been an assistant coach for the last four years of my son’s baseball team. I’m active in my kid’s life. I’ve got that job, and I’ve got my community work. Between the three, it’s busy.”
Have you seen any changes in the area? “I’ve seen the whole west side become more gentri-fied. I’ve seen a lot of people who have lived and worked in Santa Monica for generations who have left. It’s become more expensive, but this is a part of life. Santa Monica is one of those areas where a lot of people want to live in.
“I think Santa Monica is a beautiful city. I think it’s a vibrant community, and I think it’s got a lot of wonderful things going on. And I think the city has potential to do a lot of remarkable things. I think it’s a city that can get ahead and do a lot to build and change the face of its community that other parts of Los Angeles and other cities could look to and model off of. I love the city of Santa Monica. I’m trying to make enough money to move back to Santa Monica.
“It’s the same with any other community, though, because it’s the work of the community, it’s going to take people giving a helping hand and getting together, black, white and brown. The first step for people to learn is to be able to get along with everybody. Half of it is just getting along. Once people start doing that, there will be a lot of other good things that follow. So the most important thing for me is getting people to shake hands. If people just start working more together, there is just so much this town has to offer.”
How’s your relationship with your family? “I’m taking my mother out and my father out for his birthday today. He had triple bypass surgery, and I was there for him. No matter what differences we have had, I show up for my father. My ex-wife is my best friend in the world. I love her. She is the mother of my kids. We have an awesome relationship. I have a wonderful, positive, honest, open relationship with my kids.”
How’s your life different than it was, say, four years ago?
“My life is completely different now. It has completely changed. It is very different than how it was. It takes some time. It takes some learning. It takes some admit-ting that you’ve been wrong. I’d rather be at peace than right. I’ve had the support of a lot of these foundations, a lot of support from these sober and clean people around me that have helped pave the way. There was somebody out there, very much like me, who first spoke to me, when I wanted to change. And that person is a person I identified with and got me to change my life.
“The face of recovery is changing. The old ways of combating the problems with youth in our community, it’s old fashioned. And things are changing so quickly, so rapidly, the drugs, the violence, the guns, sometimes it’s scary. But things are changing, and now we’re changing lives. We’re going back into our communities and making a difference in ways that have never really been done. But that’s where it’s going to. I feel like I can relate with a lot of these kids.
“I put my hand out to the city of Santa Monica, the police and the community, and I offer my work at any time, and I hope to have the opportunity to go back to Santa Monica High School or anywhere and let the presentation speak for itself. I want to show these kids that change is possible. That’s the important thing. I don’t want to get lost on anything else that is going to take the focus off what I am doing.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 6, 2005. Read the original PDF.