City Council Makes New Rules For Performers

Mirror Staff

Although controversy over the Emergency Street Performers Ordinance continued unabated, the Santa Monica City Council unanimously passed the measure at its regular meeting Tuesday night.
   Council chambers were once again packed with performers anxious to address the Council before the proposal became law, but public comment was limited to those speaking to the revisions made in the Ordinance after last week’s meeting. Performers once again objected to the requirement that performers change locations every two hours, arguing that it was unsafe, inconvenient and perhaps unconstitutional.
   One speaker threatened a lawsuit on two counts of constitutional violations, but he was unwilling to specify what they were.
“It takes me about 20 minutes to set my table up,” said David, aka Mr. TV.
   Another performer said, “What happens is that I move 120 feet down the promenade, and some new person takes my spot.”
Calling it a “Darwinian jungle of competition,” Council member Mike Feinstein admonished, “Share the wealth! All you have to do is share the good spots.” A member of the working group which put the ordinance together, he described how far things had come since vendors were restricted to donative vending (in which payment is determined by the buyer, not the seller), and Police were running sting operations to insure that the rules were being obeyed.
   Council member Ken Genser expressed dismay that people seemed to feel they “had a Constitutional right to take a part of the public street and not let anybody else use it.”
   He downplayed the safety concerns expressed by the performers, saying, “I don’t believe for a moment that everybody is going to be moving at once when the big hand passes the 12.”
Council member Richard Bloom said, “We are caught between a rock and a hard place, but we have to do something.”
   What they finally did was pass the Ordinance, 7 – 0. An amendment extending performance hours on the Promenade to 11 p.m. was passed, “to sweeten the pot.”

Council Commends Girls’ Soccer Team
Much earlier in the evening, the council recognized the Santa Monica Saints with a “Commendation for their Successful Participation in Girls’ Soccer throughout California.”
   Clad in their blue and gold uniforms, the young women joined the Council on the dais, announced their ages and schools and were presented with certificates by Mayor Pam O’Connor. The Council chambers were ablaze with light as parents popped flashbulbs to commemorate the occasion.
   Coach Graham Wong , a native of New Zealand, told the Mirror, “We are probably the winningest girls’ soccer team ever out of Santa Monica.”
   In recent months, the Saints beat out 80 selected teams to win the Irvine Cup, as well as an invitational tournament in Orange County.

New Planning Commissioners Named
The Council also appointed Darryl Clark, Susan White and former Council member Kelly Olsen to four-year terms on the Planning Commission. Incumbent Commissioners Kathy Weremiuk and Frank Gruber failed to win reappointment.

More Parking Problems
In other business, a number of people who live on or near Franklin Street implored the Council to sanction a permit parking zone in the area bounded by Santa Monica Boulevard, Centinela Avenue, Colorado Avenue, and Yale Street, complaining that the Nessah Educational and Cultural Center on Franklin staged many large and noisy events which made it impossible for residents or their visitors to find parking places within five blocks of their homes.
   Alleging that the Nessah events draw as many as 600 people, one resident claimed that he had had to sit in front of his house with his hazard lights on for an hour before a parking place opened up.
Genser said, “I think we have to deal with the acute problem of a really insensitive neighbor.”