What, No Chain Saws? : City Council May Regulate Street Performers’ Hours, Noise Levels, Proximity to Residences

At dusk on Sunday, a crowd of about 200 stood transfixed in the center court of the Santa Monica Promenade as a tall man in a black tuxedo performed magic tricks and juggled while riding a unicycle.

A few doors south, a small group of onlookers gathered around a Latin rhythm combo. In the other direction, a man played his three-octave chimes. And from somewhere on the three-block stretch, the haunting sound of a saxophone traveled through the chilly air.

Concluding that the Promenade has attracted too much of a good thing, the Santa Monica City Council on Tuesday night considered emergency legislation to regulate street performers’ hours, noise levels and proximity to residences.

Under the ordinance, performances would be permitted only from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. during the day, from 5 to 10:30 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays and from 5 p.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday nights. Amplified music would be forbidden, as would the use of chain saws, torches, swords and other dangerous implements used by jugglers.

The council members adjourned early Wednesday morning thinking the ordinance had passed on a 4-2 vote and would take effect immediately. Late Wednesday, however, city officials discovered that such a emergency measure needed five votes for passage and scheduled a meeting at 6 tonight to reconsider it. The deeply divided council rejected as overkill a proposal to limit the number of performers to three per block and to institute a weekly lottery system to select which nine performers would get the coveted spots each week.

At times, it appeared that the only thing the group agreed on was to ban the chain saws. A series of votes split 3 to 3, with Councilmen Dennis Zane, Kelly Olsen and Tony Vazquez favoring more stringent regulations. “It’s too much, too loud, too close together,” said Zane.

Councilman Ken Genser led the opposition to the restrictions. Mayor Judy Abdo and Councilman Robert T. Holbrook agreed with him that, so far at least, a lottery is not needed. They favored giving performers time to meet with merchants and city officials to work out the problems before resorting to a lottery and blanket regulations.

Zane reluctantly broke the tie in order to get some controls in place but warned that the agreed-upon rules would only make matters worse. He said that figuring out how to deal with the large crowds who gather around street performers, blocking pedestrians and creating potential crowd control problems for police, is the most urgent issue now facing the Promenade.

The three-block outdoor shopping mall, a major source of downtown blight for much of the ‘70s and ‘80s, has succeeded beyond anyone’s dreams as a place to dine outdoors, stroll, see a movie--and watch the jugglers, clowns and artists.

In recent months, however, the opening of several music clubs drawing large crowds of young adults, especially on late weekend nights, has altered the age mix and lowered the comfort level of many older Promenade patrons.

Problems at two neighboring entertainment meccas, Westwood Village and the Venice Boardwalk, were clearly on people’s minds at a lengthy public hearing during which performers, merchants and residents spoke to the council about their concerns.

“This is turning into a little Venice,” said Susan Emann, property manager at Janss Court in the Promenade.

Tom Carroll, director of Bayside District Corp., which administers the Promenade, said performers are an essential part of the ambience in the area. The problem, he said, is that they threaten to take over and that some performers are now claiming to “own” their spots on public property.

Another resident complained about a trumpet player who was so loud that he seemed to be inside her apartment. A merchant bemoaned loss of customers, one of whom was poised to purchase something but then bolted away from the cash register to join applauding audiences at the street scene.

Several performers at the hearing said the Promenade is the place they earn their livelihood and that they cannot survive on the luck of the draw of a weekly lottery.

“I would be a street person otherwise,” musician Ed Henderson said.

Even some of the performers acknowledged that some regulation was in order. After the vote, Mickey O’Connor, the juggler on the unicycle who draws hundreds at each weekend performance, admitted that the scene is getting a bit much.

“It’s becoming a Venice Beach style, and I dislike that,” O’Connor said.