Why GTA 5's Grove Street is different from the one in GTA San Andreas

How did the Ballas take over Grove Street?
Today we dive into the infamous Grove Street. and how it could've been taken over by Ballas!

Grove Street is one of only a couple of named streets retained from the 3D Universe rendition of Los Santos along with the iconic Vinewood Boulevard.

Contrary to the separation of the universe renditions, reference is made in Grand Theft Auto V to the street's prior appearance in the 3D Universe in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. According to Lamar Davis, most of the Grove Street Families OGs eventually moved on with their lives, and possibly became rich. Grove Street retains a legendary and almost mythical reputation among some residents of Los Santos, such as Jimmy De Santa, due to "events in the nineties" as Franklin Clinton puts it when hanging out with Jimmy. Ballas members may also be heard shouting "The Families were kicked out ages ago".

[NoMercyFederation]

The worst change is the fact the whole south LA area is shrunk down to basically just grove st and the streets around it. In san andreas half the los santos map was based on south & east LA. In gta 5 its damn near not existant. Which is wack to me.

[FusionZ_]

One time I got dialogue in the hood as Franklin a guy in a green helmet with a green shirt said yo you heard og Johnson bought the casino up near vinewood and the other guys said” yea yea yea”

[seanblessed]

I remember when gta 5 came out and when I played it for the first time the first thing I did was I went to grove street expecting the families to be posted up there, but then when I seen the ballas posted up on grove street I was like wtf 😂

[keezymann]

What I think what happened: since the houses look different on grove street in GTA V than San Andreas, I think a neighborhood injunction probably happened on grove street somewhere in between the years of 1993-2004. For anyone who doesn’t know what a neighborhood injunction is, it’s a strategy used by the city/property owners to drive out any criminal activity in said neighborhood, SWAT Teams and ATF will come through and kick doors down strip search people/homes and put red tags on doors aka “VACATE THE PREMISES” notices, after grove street was abandoned they tore majority of the houses down and built new ones over, the same thing happened in a neighborhood that I live in right now, at some point in 2004-2010 the Ballas must have moved in after the injunction and claimed the territory, makes sense on why CJ’s Mom’s house isn’t there anymore.

[KevinCofDE]

My thoughts. CJ had all the other ventures. He left them behind. Sweet got shot by a balla and the rival gang took over the grove. With the members who didn’t want to drop their flags having an open position as a head you started seeming more sets show up (around 1999 after sweet was shot and CJ keeping up with the casino partnership and maddogg’s career.) thus you have families dealin and striving for dominance

[Drasi]

Or... Grove Street basically grew out of gang life. With CJ, and his multiple businesses, they probably left their turf. And a power vacuum was created in which the Ballast quickly filled.

Thoughts?

[Ghostyx_dz]

I think CJ left the gang life because he got older and realized gang isn’t worth it and left with his sister and I think Caesar left the gang life too and moved to San fierro. And CJ as you notice CJ owns his own toothpaste he probably left and began making new things and making new companies.

[dauphongii]

Don't forget the fact that 3D and HD universe are completely different in some aspects. Usually events that happen prior and after the game do go across the universes
(example of that being the pollution leak of 1988 and an oil tanker accident that happened somewhere around 2001, which causes water around LC to look oily and in the beginning, dangerous to swim in, which can later be observed in HD universe, where the water still looks really polluted and oily).

However, events that happen directly through gameplay usually do not go across the universes. If Grove Street indeed did take over the entire LS, there would never be competition anymore. In HD universe, CJ most likely doesn't even exist, and even if he does, he would probably have a very minor influence, existing only as a, say, a face for advertisement or name on a book, or something like that.

So we can also assume that in upcoming GTA 6, Tommy Vercetti and his big operation would have never happened, but that doesn't mean Vice City doesn't have problems with sharks and hurricanes, so bridges being closed at some point, and you needing to find alternative ways might very well be a thing.

[bartolomeestebanmurillo]

Many characters of GTA canon exist in both the 3D and HD universes so it's logical that there is a version of CJ somewhere and they heavily imply the events of San Andreas occurred with references to the 90s. CJ made it big at the end of SA and so he likely convinced Sweet to leave that life behind and go legit. They left GSF to those who didn't have the same vision and so the gang declined over time. Kendl likely moved to San Fierro with Cesar and he left the Aztecas behind.

[southsidecompton]

The real reason why Grove Street Families lost their turf to the Ballas was because they tore down the Ganton Courts housing projects. Just like in LA, many gangs that control housing projects majority members live or hang out in the projects then in the actual surrounding hood. With GSF you mostly had 2 clicks the PJs and the Grove Street click. I can tell most members lived in the projects. Fast forward 2013 from Ganton to Davis those projects are gone. The only active GSF were the ones on Grove Street. It make sense the Ballas kept dropping the last remaining members til they finally took over Grove Street. Just to let you know ain't no way in hell CJ took over the whole city, this ain't no corny Saints Row. If it was like that there wouldn't be any Ballas and Vagos in 2013. In GTA SA the only way to play the last mission of the game you only need to take a certain percent back. I still don't understand how Rockstar only added 1 housing project in GTA V. In GTA SA they had 7 housing projects.

[dr.finnegan]

GSF ogs died out. CJ couldn’t care less about gang bangin, and that’s is crystal clear in SA ending. He had better things going on.
Sweet probably ended up like Emmet did, at least in terms of mentality. He was a solo survivor and stood for something that wasn’t there anymore.
If you look carefully, Emmet is the perfect parallel to Sweet.
He was an old school Families member in a hood that wasn’t anymore Orange Families for a very long time. But Sweet had CJ and probably was taken along by his brother lifestyle in the end.
GSF new generation of gangsters had no links to the families at all. These younger guys probably tried to emulate CJ rags to riches by dealing dope and somehow that ended with a Ballas set in Grove Street.

[Theaggressivesalad]

I reckon CJ's still going as a businessman working with Woozy, Madd Dogg, Cesar & Kendl.

You can tell his mind was made up about leaving the hood behind when he picked Sweet up from prison. He tried to get Sweet to come along with it, but Sweet was having none of it so he tried to rebuild the hood to try and win Sweet over.

After the end of the story, with all his enemies out of the picture, CJ decided he wanted a fresh start and to take full advantage of the business connections he'd made. You can tell at the end when he says he's going to take a walk around the block. He likely decided during that walk, he wanted to put him and his business interests above the hood and being a gangbanger.

He'd have likely moved away and out of Grove Street if not LS entirely.

Over time, Sweet would have likely gotten more annoyed that CJ was putting his business interests above that of the hood as well as constantly being away from it. He'd also likely still be mad at Kendl for going out with someone who wasn't from Grove St gang. CJ & Kendl would have likely made numerous attempts to get Sweet on board but Sweet would have refused as he's incapable of seeing that there's more to the world than Grove Street and the gang. This would eventually lead to CJ & Kendl cutting ties with Sweet or at the very least distancing themselves from him so they don't get drawn in to the gang violence again.

Judging by the fact that Grove Street is Ballas controlled by 2013, Sweet is either dead or incarcerated due to being unable to see a life beyond being a gangbanger. So the gang would have had no leadership which would have meant the remaining homies would have fled, died or moved over to the Ballas. CJ would have no interest in intervening at this point as he no longer wants to risk his life when he has better options with his business connections & no real ties to Grove St anymore. All the others will have all just moved on with their lives, capitalising on the business connections made in the SA story.

[pissedoffbucketguy]

I think the reason why there isn't any gang wars in gta 5 is because of lore reasons and not lazy programming.

Since it was mentioned before in the early missions involving Franklin and lamar (the mission where they kidnap some baller) it was stated that they didn't have beef with families

Stretch after the giant shootout in the warehouse even said that they could be at risk of an entire gang war because of Franklin's and Lamar's failed kidnapping and the shootout they just got out of

[goatlps]

Disappointing the house isn't even there and enterable. Is the street even Grove Street? It's like Rockstar hate the old games and characters that made them.

[Dattemp]

Sweet wanting CJ and Kendl to spend the rest of their life in the Ghetto was the most infuriating thing about him.

[aikokobamew]

I like to think all the events in the 3D universe took place in the HD as well, the only difference really being the names of certain things. Onto my actual theory for the fall of the Grove Street Families. Some time after the events of GTA SA, CJ and Sweet both started to have more responsibility. The Ballas perform a drive by on Sweets house injuring him, infront of his kids. CJ would visit Sweet at the hospital only to see Sweet's Girlfriend and Children both looked distraught with tears in their eyes. CJ would ask them step out of the room so he could be with his brother he would say "Sweet, I understand you said you would die in the hood, but you got kids now do you really want this kind of life for them?" Sweet would reply "I don't know anymore, I want to see my kids grow but if I continue on like this, it ain't gonna happen. But it goes against my principle." CJ would interject "What happened to your principle against Drugs man, the whole neighborhood is full of baseheads, if we keep this up where are our kids gonna be if this is the environment they grow up in?" Sweet replied "I know, but this is our home man, it always will be so I don't want to give it up" CJ then said "Man, look your kids deserve better they could have better. Live a quiet life its time we hang this gangbangin shit up" Sweet would reply "CJ you're right, where will we go though?" CJ said "Somewhere we ain't gonna be walking around with a target on our backs, maybe move east get out of San Andreas or move out into the country outside of San Fiero so we'll be close to our sister."

I think at some point CJ was able to convince Sweet to give up the gang life, without much leadership the Families would split up into new sets, forming the sets we know in GTA 5, the other gangs who were weaker would have reformed and like vultures start pecking at the remains of the Grove Street Claims in Los Santos. Sweet and CJ would have moved, Maybe into a gated community as they could afford it with CJ having several Legit businesses in the State of San Andreas and a stake in a Casino.

[carl._]

I think that sweet got killed and CJ Kendal and Cesar move out of the hood if you remember, CJ didn’t want anything to do with the gang life anymore, sweet was probably killed

[NateBullock-owon]

CJ was definitely not a coward he probably just knew there was no future in it💯

[drip]

I always thought it was mainly because CJ was trying to get out of the hood which was why he got into the casino business and when Sweet got out of prison CJ basically abandoned the Hoods and wanted to take Sweet back to his mansion but sweet didn’t want to leave the Hood and wanted to be taken back to grove street.

[ygstraightout]

If we think about the fact that this whole gang story about gsf vs ballas is based on the crips vs bloods i think it went something like this, after cj takes over LS, cj becomes a celebrity and a bilionaire once some years passes and the 2000s came, most of the OG's moved out of the sets and most of them went to vinewood or better areas in LS, at this point grove street got abbandoned by the gsf and the remaining ballas took over the turf, to the other hand the remaining grove street families (and all them other sets) once their leader (sweet) was gone re established the families and took a new turf, i believe this because Gerald didn't wanted a war between the ballas and the feds, there's a reason why the feds doesn't want that the families and the ballas goes to war again, they don't want this to be repeated again as it did in 1992 in gta san andreas