Santa Monica Targets Promenade Loiterers

Santa Monica, the city that once opened its arms to the homeless and downtrodden, this week yanked its welcome mat for the dispossessed a little further inside the front door, passing a law that prohibits sitting or lying down on the popular Third Street Promenade.

City officials defend the ordinance as a measure of the community’s commitment to preserving its place as a regional tourist hub. Critics say it symbolizes Santa Monica’s departure from the social values that once won it national acclaim as a haven of egalitarianism.

Targeted by the law, one of the first of its kind in the nation, are a band of teenage street urchins who have cast a pall over stretches of the outdoor shopping mall by allegedly dealing drugs, shouting at shoppers and bathing a menagerie of small animals in public fountains.

But on Wednesday, the day the new law took effect, the teenagers were holding their ground--along with their pet rats, snakes and an iguana--by merely standing on the Promenade sidewalk. The tourists, locals and store employees who are supposed to be the beneficiaries of the anti-loitering law were actually the ones in technical violation as they sat on the curb to smoke a cigarette, munch a slice of pizza or just rest.

Former Santa Monica City Atty. Robert M. Myers--deposed from the city four years ago for declining to crack down on the homeless--called the new law an elitist, election-year ploy by council members to show they are tough on crime.

“My reaction is to paraphrase Shakespeare,” Myers said, bending a phrase from Richard III. “For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of freedom in Santa Monica.”

City Councilman Robert Holbrook denied that the policy was another sign of the beach city’s burgeoning elitism.

“This is not about the homeless,” Holbrook said. “The Promenade attracts people because it’s a pleasant place where you can converse, shop and have dinner. It’s for everybody, but we can’t allow people to lay around and block the public egress.”

The Santa Monica law is based on a similar measure in Seattle, where the City Council hoped to rid its downtown of vagrants who slept in doorways and begged on sidewalks. The ordinance was upheld in a federal appellate court despite a challenge by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Seattle police have issued about 50 citations over two years, most of which resulted in $20 fines. The number of homeless sleeping on downtown sidewalks has decreased markedly as a result, city officials claim.

Santa Monica’s version of the law makes it a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a $500 fine and six months in jail, to sit or lie down on the Promenade between 6 a.m. and 1 a.m. Police will inform street squatters of the new law before they begin issuing citations. Police have not yet decided how aggressively they will enforce the law.

In order to secure unanimous support of the five council members present Tuesday night, the council majority agreed to review the measure in six months.

About 30 cities interested in imposing similar laws have contacted Seattle City Hall, but officials in that city said that they believe only Berkeley and Santa Monica have passed anti-sitting measures.

Urban affairs experts said they expect the regulation of public behavior increasingly to become an issue as cities shift their commercial centers back to outdoor plazas and malls and away from the privately owned indoor shopping malls that have dominated American commercial life for three decades.

“Time and again the courts have upheld the right of the owners of shopping malls to control what goes on in their property,” said Doug Suisman, an architect and urban designer who has designed public facilities in Los Angeles and Santa Monica. “The trade-off is you get safety and security, but an artificial public environment. Now there is a swing back and this is a healthy debate, about how much you can control activity in a public place.”

The anti-sitting measure also reflects Santa Monica’s intense interest in the success of the Promenade, the three-block-long attraction that has been been a booming success and a model for many other communities.

“It’s unfortunate that you have to create an ordinance like this to protect the ambience of the Promenade and the investment these people have worked so hard for,” said Sherry Kellogg, chairwoman of the Bayside District Corp., which manages the outdoor mall.

Kevin Tran, manager of Yangtze restaurant, said customers routinely complain about a group of rowdy teenagers who hang out near his front door. “It’s just not good for the city of Santa Monica to have such an image,” said Tran. “The [teens] say funny things to customers like, ‘Hey, I’m pregnant. Can I have your food?’ ”

A 32-year-old West Hollywood man walking on the Promenade on Wednesday agreed, moments after a homeless woman shouted at his girlfriend, without any apparent provocation. “I’m just tired of all these homeless people,” said the man, who identified himself only as Kevin. “Why don’t they get a job? They just make everything dirty.”

But others ambling through the chichi shopping zone, particularly some local residents, weren’t as comfortable with their city’s action.

“I think it’s ridiculous,” said David Spero, a bookstore clerk who sat on the Promenade curb, dragging on a cigarette. “It’s directed at the homeless. I can’t believe the steps the City Council is taking. This law is fascist.”

A strict rent control law and homeless feedings on the front lawn of City Hall had for years helped saddle the beach community with the label of the “People’s Republic of Santa Monica.” But in recent times, some commentators have said the city is locked in a conservative backlash--characterized, in particular, by the city’s shift of homeless services away from public places and its support of substantial business development.

Councilman Holbrook denied that the law targets the homeless and said he actually appreciates the rough-edged teens who congregated on the mall as “a bit of Americana.” But he added: “If they want to do their little freak show thing, they can. But don’t do it in front of someone else’s store.”

As for the band of teens--decked out in jeans, chains and a bit of leather--they pledged not to relocate their roost. The city already targeted their behavior once before this year, passing an ordinance that banned them (and anyone else) from washing a menagerie of rats, snakes and other pets in the Promenade’s fountains.

Jessie “Pretty Boy” Baumhauer, 21, said the new law is “pretty much designed to kill off the undesirables, which is us.”

“Fuzzy,” a 17-year-old homeless girl from New Orleans, claims she’d be happy to go to jail.

“That ain’t so bad,” said the girl, whose 4-month-old puppy, chained to a planter, was urinating on the sidewalk. “You get fed.”