The new that amends Los Angeles Municipal Code 42.15 to regulate vending and performances on the Venice Beach boardwalk went into effect Friday as some of its nuances continue to unfold.
Lt. Paola Kreefft of the Los Angeles Police Department told the Venice Neighborhood Council on Tuesday that officers will start enforcing a previous city regulation that prohibits any person from being at Venice Beach Park, including Ocean Front Walk, between the hours of 12 a.m. and 5 a.m. The enforcement of the park's hours became part of the plan to enforce the new vending rules, which prohibits overnight camping for vending spots.
"That obviously means that the park is closed to everyone, you can't sleep in the park overnight, you can't enter the park overnight, you can't linger and you can't loiter," she said. "It's going to be applied universally, not just to people who like to stay overnight in the park, but people who live in the area won't be able to walk on Ocean Front Walk after midnight."
The police department understands that there are homes and businesses along Ocean Front Walk and people will be allowed to walk to their homes and from a business to a parking lot.
"But if anyone wants to take a midnight stroll through the park, that's not going to be allowed," Kreefft said.
The VNC board has been supportive of the Ocean Front Walk ordinance, said VNC President Linda Lucks to Kreefft, but the part about the park closure was new information and not brought before the board.
VNC member Ivonne Guzman said she felt the overnight park closure was "taking a lot of our freedom away" and noted that she sometimes enjoys a midnight bike ride.
VNC community officer Cindy Chambers said the closure of the park goes against the California Coastal Commission findings and said the park and its boardwalk should remain open to the public.
The VNC's Neighborhood Committee on Monday will hear from representatives from Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl's office and residents on the newly posted rules at the Oakwood Park Recreation Center.
Meanwhile, the City of Los Angeles has recently decided to allow henna skin art on the west side of the boardwalk, whereas previously it had been banned.
Managing Assistant City Attorney Valerie Flores said that due to public confusion over a recent 9th Circuit Court of Appeals' case, the City of Los Angeles has decided to allow henna applications on the boardwalk.
Henna artists will have to provide all applicable licenses to practice and must prove they are using non-toxic materials, Flores said.
The Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks may in the future adopt regulations to ensure compliance with these rules, Flores said.
The City Attorney's Office said the LAPD will begin enforcing L.A.M.C. 42.15 this weekend, as they finalize posting signage and making documents available to the public.
The new ordinance, which was approved Dec. 13 by the Los Angeles City Council, revises and defines the exact items that will be prohibited and allowed to be sold on 205 spaces on the western side of the boardwalk.
The ordinance would ban the sale of common items with a "non-expressive purpose," such as clothes, sunglasses, incense, candy, crystals, oils, jewelry and toys.
Vendors will still be able to sell books, paintings, recordings, sculptures or other works they have created.
The new ordinance also puts in place noise restrictions for performers and prohibits any vending from sunset to 9 a.m. and overnight camping for vending spots.
Let freedom ring and keep taking those stupid pills.
As long as we have our community under the thumb of a bunch of myopians (that includes ALL of them, from the elected officials to the police to the real estate mafia and its cheerleaders) who whose mindset is like, "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail," we'll be trapped between the powers that be and the "1% Wanna-be's." Good luck to the rest of us.
Beaches: Manhattan: 12.08.180 - Beach loitering. No person shall loiter on any beach between the hours of 12:00 midnight and 6:00 a.m. of the following day in a manner that is not usual for law abiding individuals under the circumstances and warrants alarm for the safety of persons or property in the vicinity. Hermosa: 12.20.210 Loitering . No person shall loiter on any portion of the beach or strand at any time during the hours of twelve midnight and six a.m. of the following day. (Prior code § 5-23) Redondo: The Pier itself is open 24 hours a day for walkers, fisherman, and business patrons. Santa Monica: 4.08.091 Park closure. (a) No person shall enter, remain or be present in any of the following City of Santa Monica parks between the hours of eleven p.m. and six a.m.: ... (2) Beach Park #1; (3) Beach Park #4 (Lifeguard Headquarters); ... (b) No person shall enter, remain or be present in Palisades Park between the hours of twelve midnight and five a.m. (c) This Section shall not apply to any public sidewalk immediately adjacent to any public street or highway, or to any street or highway which traverses any park, including the Santa Monica Municipal Pier access road or walkway... Lifeguard stations are staffed during all daylight hours – though the lifeguard headquarters provides 24-hour assistance year-round. Q.E.D: City Council needs new counsel.
If we want curfews for the beach and the boardwalk, there's a simple procedure to be followed to do it legally. It's there to protect us from scofflaws, including those in public office. The City Attorney should be dedicated to protecting the rule of law, not running roughshod over it. Is it smart or ethical for the Councilman to demand police enforcement of an illegal curfew? Does it really build community respect for the law when police hand out citations that are routinely tossed out of court? That is just harassment, not law enforcement. Do we as citizens really want to turn a blind eye to police systematically violating state law for the sake of political convenience? By the way, I don’t believe the cops are doing this intentionally. They’re enforcing a City ordinance that’s on the books. The City Attorney is telling them it’s okay, and the Councilman could care less about niceties like obeying state law, because he assumes the C.A. can fix things for him in a backroom deal with State lawyers.
The question now is whether the Commission itself will go along with this pantomime. It has not in the past, but now it is largely a new commission, and new commissioners tend to rely more heavily on staff’s advice. Some would see such a deal as a victory for Venice residents. They may not understand how vital the Coastal Commission has been in enabling residents to protect Venice from overdevelopment and privatization. Without enforcement of the Coastal Act, we would not have the Venice Coastal Zone Specific Plan, let alone the coastal Land Use Plan. Speculators who long ago bought up beachfront properties to build high rises would have turned Venice into Miami Beach decades ago. They still own those properties, waiting for the moment when the stars align -- when local politicians are sufficiently pliable and the Commission falters in its resolve. We need to realize who our friends are.
The City Attorney knows full well that the ordinance will be declared illegal. Wasting our dollars on such a belligerent contrivance, simply in order to appease a few frustrated residents and coastline developers, is downright criminal. But for the City Attorney to declare such an action illegal would be a conflict of interest - he'd have to arrest himself. And no, helicopter flights will not decrease - they will increase: Those who now sleep near the beach will have to move inland. Criminals will continue to use them as camouflage. Neighborhoods will become more noisy, not less. Proper enforcement is challenging enough without creating the kind of extra discord that this ordinance will bring. One has to wonder whether dividing the community is the City Council's underlying goal.
Thanks for your excellent posts. In your response of one of mine you say, "..my understanding is that the CC is afraid of legal actions by the city because the city has unlimited resources to devote to such an undertaking and the CC does not..." I’ve heard the same thing. It is a shame that the tiny, defenseless state of California (budget $129.5 billion) is getting sand kicked in its face by the big, bad City of Los Angeles (budget $6.5 billion). The City is so broke it’s had to lay off workers by the hundreds but seems to have bottomless pockets when it comes to this pointless pissing contest. It would be interesting to know just how much the City has spent on this and other recent Venice adventures. As far as where the homeless sleep and why, the C.A. is now claiming the Jones Settlement, which expressly allows the homeless to sleep on sidewalks from 9PM to 6AM, applies only to the skid row area. The settlement contains no such limitation. What venicepower calls “a new low in cynicism,” the City Attorney probably thinks of as an “aggressive position,” meaning he knows it’s crap but by the time anyone successfully sues, the City will have bought the time to do its dirty work.