L.A. Council Passes Measure to Put Brakes on Cruising

Concerned that cruising causes gridlock and crime along some city streets, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to toughen the city’s restrictions on cruising. The new law will limit cars to one round trip every six hours on streets where police determine that cruising is a problem.

Police Capt. Rick Batson said the urgency ordinance, if signed as expected before the weekend by acting Mayor John Ferraro, will be tested Friday night on Hollywood and Sunset boulevards in the event of cruisers clogging up those streets. Motorists passing through designated checkpoints will be issued a warning and violators will be subject to fines of up to $250.

For the past two weeks, Hollywood Division police have been trying to rid an eight-block strip of Hollywood Boulevard between McCadden Place and Alta Vista Boulevard of cruisers. While 446 citations were issued during the period, only one was for violation of the city’s existing cruising ordinance.

The new law is patterned after a Newport Beach city ordinance passed in December, 1984, to curb cruising along Balboa Boulevard. The new Los Angeles ordinance will beef up the 2-year-old city law that had restricted drivers from entering an anti-cruising zone more than twice in two hours.

Several council members expressed concern that the new curbs are too severe and that both cruisers and those not engaged in the activity could be cited under it.

“I think it’s overkill, a little bit,” said Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores. “It seems to me this is way too restrictive.”

But Batson said the only alternative to the approved restrictions was to shut the affected street down altogether.

Councilman Hal Bernson, meanwhile, expressed regret that an anti-cruising law was necessary and blamed it partly on the lack of other forms of recreation for the city’s teen-agers.

“There are no alternatives; kids have no place to go and they wind up on the streets,” Bernson said. “There are no organized activities for young people; they’re too young to go to the bars. . . .”

Bernson and Flores voted for the measure.

Under the new law, if police determine that a street or a portion of it has become clogged by cars making repeated trips through it, officers will declare that a cruising problem exists and checkpoints will be erected. The measures will be temporary.

Batson said a car entering either the eastbound or westbound checkpoint on Hollywood Boulevard will be verbally informed of the once-in-six-hours restriction and handed a flier explaining the penalties for violating the ordinance. In addition, police will continue a recently launched practice of entering license plate numbers into a laptop computer to detect potential cruisers. The computer will emit a beep if the plate number is entered a second time.

Police will have the discretion to withhold a citation if the driver can explain that he lives in the area or has a specific destination.

Asked how an officer could make that determination, Batson said: “You can tell. People going to the Pantages (Theatre) aren’t wearing tank tops and shorts and tennis shoes and three girls in the back seat and two guys in the front and a six-pack in the trunk.

“You can tell.”