AST SUMMER, a kid with an acoustic guitar would perch on a boardwalk bench at North Venice Boulevard, strumming softly in the hours before dawn. He practiced “Blackbird” by The Beatles until he'd nailed the tune, a sweet slice of Venice life in the dead of the night — like listening to The Wave but with real waves as accompaniment. No one seemed to mind.
But thanks to City Attorney Carmen Trutanich and Councilman Bill Rosendahl, he’ll face ticketing or arrest if he tries it again. Boardwalk residents digging the late night ocean breeze or having a chat with neighbors outside their homes have also been deemed lawbreakers. So goes freedom of assembly.
Hundreds of boardwalk residents and night owls may be joining the criminal class because of the overnight curfew on Ocean Front Walk, a public thoroughfare open without restriction for 105 years. Until now, that is. From this week forward the boardwalk shall be closed between midnight and 5 a.m. Step away from Ocean Front Walk.
New signage announced the curfew as a fait accompli without due process, the only Los Angeles curfew imposed against anyone other than juveniles or gang members without being justified by an extreme emergency — the 1992 Los Angeles riots for instance. No looting or firebombing here. Anyone who's taken a pre-dawn stroll knows the boardwalk is a venue for all kinds of Angelenos, rioters are not among them.
Renters and property owners who linger outdoors, or stroll down their main drag after midnight to exercise or enjoy the night ocean air are now subject to a warning, a ticket, or arrest by the Los Angeles Police Department. Same for folks who live nearby and use the boardwalk as streets have always been used — a place to socialize — free from traffic and the commercial hustle of Abbot Kinney Boulevard.
Strike up a conversation with folks hanging out after midnight and you'll hear names and reps of LAPD officers, and how some are more prone than others to mess with those suspiciously different from, say, couples snuggled-up indoors watching Cinemax. Being out late is suspect behavior? Miles of walkway should be declared off-limits?
The boardwalk after midnight is pure Venice Beach culture, burning bright late at night, and now shut down without explanation.
What's the curfew all about? Homelessness? Keeping boardwalk actors and musicians from staking out performance space overnight? Rosendahl isn't saying, but he's kicked up anxieties along the beach. Stroll home from a Windward, Venice or Washington Boulevard pub after the witching hour and cops will be watching, armed with unwritten rules — legal basis to stop, detain, question and demand identification of anyone on the boardwalk after 12.
Cop suck-up blog Venice 311 posted a stern ultimatum: “Don’t be on Ocean Front Walk from midnight to 5 a.m. for any reason regardless of how inconvenienced you feel.”
Pacific Division Lt. Paula Kreeft says LAPD officers have broad discretionary authority over who stays and who goes, and will allow boardwalk residents to walk between their cars and front doors. Beyond that, say critics, the curfew is just so much cultural profiling.
The closure is being enacted with smoke and mirrors as Venetians learned at a Neighborhood Council meeting Monday night. Rosendahl, Trutanich did not attend, or send representatives capable of answering basic questions. Why were boardwalk residents not consulted in a decision made without transparency or due process? The cops were clueless, as was Rosendahl staffer Arturo Piña who tried to muddy the curfew’s genesis.
Kreeft described the boardwalk closure as a fresh interpretation of a 1989 ordinance, but Piña buried the blame in the mists of time. “It’s an unspecified rule dating from Venice becoming part of L.A. in 1924,” he claimed. Venice’s annexation actually happened in November 1925, but Piña pressed on, distancing his boss who's up for re-election in March and Trutanich who may or may not be running for district attorney. Pin an unspecified rule on unspecified dead guys from 86 years ago. Nice.
Boardwalk denizens claim the curfew is the first in a series of battles designed to Disney-fy SoCal's biggest tourist attraction and boost 90291 home values in a depressed real estate market. Proof, they say, is the fallout about to rain down on other dayparts, locals and tourists. If park rules now apply to the boardwalk, no one will be allowed to walk dogs, carry a parrot on their shoulder, or sling a snake around their neck any time of day or night. Smoking on the boardwalk will be prohibited, as it is on the sand.
Is bicycling now prohibited on Ocean Front Walk and the bike path late at night? Piña and LAPD had no idea. Will cops will force night riders onto the streets, off a far-safer thoroughfare away from cars and trucks? Check back in a month. The new rules are apparently being improvised in real time, like ordinances before them in the long-running game of City Hall vs. Venice. Politician lays down a boardwalk law, courts deem it unconstitutional, law is struck down, rinse and repeat. Meantime, a flurry of tickets, arrests, harassments and law suits fly freely.
EHIND THE SCENES,Venice’s anti-homeless movement is cheering on police against fellow Venetians whom they consider to be the wrong sort for their spiffy, Manhattan Beach tastes. Fresh from their victory in banning the vehicular homeless, they've now set their sights on the boardwalk, though this time anyone living in the neighborhood can be a victim of collateral damage.
If the curfew is about sleeping on the boardwalk, it's only succeeding in flushing those sleeping on the boardwalk onto adjacent residential streets, swelling the ranks of those who huddle nightly right around the corner, a few feet away, with a wink-and-nod from the LAPD. Rosendahl's highly-promoted program to house and provide wrap-around services to the homeless has turned out to have been little more than a PR stunt, a Band-Aid from last year's homeless wars.
Meantime, officers admit Ocean Front Walk has always been a cinch to patrol. Squad cars have long cruised the boardwalk in drive-by enforcement and officers rarely need to step from their cars. Roll down the window, ask for ID.
So why not impose an overnight curfew on all of Venice, giving the LAPD more of the enforcement convenience it craves? When all of Venice’s streets are outlawed after midnight, only outlaws will use them. Welcome to the world-famous Venice Beach Boardwalk. Now get inside and stay there.
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