Santa Monica Clamps Down on Promenade Performances

The Madonna impersonator, the torch-tossing juggler and the puppeteer with a lip-syncing Jimi Hendrix marionette are among dozens of street performers who got the hook from the Santa Monica City Council this week.

Concluding that the city’s successful open-air mall, the Third Street Promenade, has attracted too much of a good thing, the City Council has adopted an emergency ordinance, imposing limits on street performers’ hours, noise levels and how close to homes they will be allowed to do their thing.

Their new curfew is midnight Fridays and Saturdays, and 10:30 p.m. the rest of the week. No performances are permitted before 11 a.m., and on weekdays the hours of 2 to 5 p.m. are also off-limits. Amplified music, boom boxes and taped music were outlawed, as were the chain saws, swords and torches used by jugglers.

It is the second time in recent weeks that Santa Monica has moved to keep its thriving entertainment mecca under control. The council previously limited the hours for selling and drinking alcohol on the mall’s dining patios, to prevent it from turning into a “bar-crawl” magnet for the region.

Now the worry is an unwanted carnival atmosphere. An influx of street performers has been attracting audiences in the hundreds and clogging up foot traffic alon the Promenade, which stretches from Broadway to Wilshire Boulevard.

While matters have not gotten out of hand, Santa Monica police have warned that the crowds present a safety hazard.

Merchants have complained that they cannot compete with the more compelling sidewalk drama of the unicycling juggler, or the escape artist who breaks free from a straitjacket.

“The retail object of the street is being sacrificed to the performance objectives of the street,” said City Councilman Dennis Zane.

With its mix of movie theaters, outdoor cafes and music clubs, the Promenade has blossomed in the last two years into a gathering place for crowds of all ages. The new ordinance reflects concerns of merchants and city officials that the proliferation of street performers threatens the balance that has made the Promenade so appealing.

When City Council members took up the issue earlier in the week, they haggled for hours. They adjourned believing they had passed the ordinance 4-2, but City Atty. Robert M. Myers later realized that because it was an emergency measure, the ordinance needed a fifth vote.

At a hastily called meeting to remedy the error on Thursday, the debate started all over again. Zane accused his colleagues of caring more about the rights of street performers than about the rights of residents and merchants. He favored more stringent guidelines limiting performers to three per block, to be chosen in a weekly lottery. Performers said the lottery would put them out of business--and worse.

“I would be a street person,” musician Ed Henderson told the council.

Other council members balked, saying such stringent restrictions were not warranted. The council will revisit the thorny subject within 90 days.

Promenade performers are meeting on their own, and have already suggested ways to police themselves.

Santa Monicans who expressed their sentiments via the city’s computer network reacted with alarm and bemusement at what they considered the council’s penchant for regulating every aspect of life. One man even suggested a slogan for the program: “Use a saxophone--go to jail.”