Venice Boardwalk Update

Over at CurbedLA, they speak of new restrictions on the Venice Ocean Front Walk as outlined by the Venice Paper. Interesting to note, the "three well-attended meetings" mentioned in the article initially had to be broken up by Police because nothing could be accomplished with all the interruptions of music, chanting, and other free expressions. At one meeting, City officials actually walked out in frustration.

But to the current ordinance...
The ordinance actually established a "Free Speech and Expression Zone" that previously did not exist. The City bases it's rationale on the following seven points:

(1) The Venice Beach Boardwalk is a major tourist attraction in the City of Los Angeles, historically significant for its performance and visual artists as well as free speech advocates. Unregulated vending adversely affects the historic
character of the Venice Beach Boardwalk by deterring tourists from visiting and shopping along the Boardwalk resulting in an economic and cultural loss to City;

(2) Unregulated vending along the Venice Beach Boardwalk from tables, pushcarts, stands, or by persons impedes the orderly movement of pedestrian traffic and may make the Boardwalk unsafe for pedestrians by limiting the City's ability to effect crowd management and control;

(3) Unregulated vending along the Venice Beach Boardwalk may impede the ingress and egress of emergency and public safety vehicles by creating physical obstacles to emergency response and administration of aid to those in need of immediate medical attention and to victims of criminal activity;

(4) Revitalization of the Venice Beach Boardwalk requires a vibrant and stable merchant, artist, performer and free speech advocacy community. Unregulated vending could serve to undermine the Boardwalk's commercial life by reducing sales from local merchants thereby eroding the City's tax revenues due to unfair competition, and by offering additional opportunity for the sale of stolen, defective or counterfeit merchandise;

(5) Unregulated vending causes visual clutter/blight along the Boardwalk, impeding views of the beach and the Pacific Ocean threatening the City's ability to attract tourists and preserve businesses along the Boardwalk;

(6) Unnecessary, excessive and annoying noise detrimental to the public health, welfare and safety, and contrary to the public interest, on the Venice Beach Boardwalk harms residents, businesses, and the historic character of the Boardwalk, diminishing the quality of life for those who visit, live or work on or near the Boardwalk;

(7) The amount of space on the Venice Beach Boardwalk that is available for performing and visual artists and for political advocacy is limited due to the size of the Boardwalk and the large crowds of visitors that the Boardwalk attracts. Prior to the City's Board of Recreation and Parks Commission establishing a program for assignment of spaces, there were numerous
altercations over the locations and amounts of space that anyone person or organization could use. Frequently, the altercations became violent requiring law enforcement response to preserve the public peace. Persons wishing to secure spaces often arrived at the Boardwalk prior to dawn and created loud noises in setting up their displays, thereby disturbing the public peace and requiring law enforcement response. Unregulated, the Boardwalk became a lawless area, where only the strongest and earliest arrivals could secure space to exercise their rights of free expression without threat of intimidation. It is, therefore, necessary to regulate the use of the limited space on the Boardwalk to prevent breaches of the public peace and to allocate the limited space available fairly to all who desire to use it for lawful purposes.

Remember the City does have a ordinance that allows for creating a Vending District, which this is not. So, this was what had to be done, according to the Council starting with Ruth Galanter back in 1999. (Too bad she doesn't have a better Wikipedia entry; will she go the way of Pat Russell?!?)

Also, this isn't the first time that the folks along the Ocean Front Walk are upset at the Department of Recreation and Parks; back in 1978, people were upset about the limitations on performers and performances. Check it out here.