Civic, Business Heads Unite for More Police

Fearing more violence-related closures of Venice Beach, community leaders on Wednesday demanded a significantly greater police presence to handle the massive weekend crowds and sporadic gang fighting that led authorities to shut down the popular tourist attraction Sunday.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter announced she is handing over $125,000 from her office budget to the three police divisions in her district, which includes Venice. The station covering Venice would get $55,000. Local commanders will decide how to allocate the money.

The Venice business leaders, showing unusual unity for the normally contentious community, said in a beachside news conference that a recent increase in police staffing for the spring and summer months--about 90 police were on duty Sunday--was not enough to cope with crowds that can approach 200,000. The groups called for a weekend beach force of about 140 officers, roughly the number of off-duty officers who would patrol the Los Angeles Coliseum for a football game attended by 90,000 fans.

“I would think that if the Coliseum has all those people in chairs and they need that big a force, then we should have that big a force,” said Steve Heumann, vice president of the company that owns the Sidewalk Cafe and other boardwalk properties. Heumann heads a group that wants city permission to hire an additional force of five to 10 off-duty police to patrol the boardwalk year-round.

“I’d like to see some prevention,” Heumann said.

Galanter was joined at her City Hall news conference by Police Chief Willie L. Williams, who praised her decision to transfer office funds to the police. But Williams also cautioned that the money wouldn’t go far. “It might last a couple days. It might last a couple weeks,” he said.

Galanter said the money came from savings gained through staffing cutbacks in the past two years. Two to three field-office positions were left vacant during that time, she said.

In another effort to answer safety concerns sparked by Sunday’s incident, Galanter pointed to her just-passed measure designed to keep dog owners from using their pets to intimidate people, a complaint sometimes heard on the boardwalk. And she said she is seeking approval to use revenue from Los Angeles International Airport to hire more police.

Galanter praised the decision last week to increase boardwalk police to summertime levels weeks earlier than normal following reports of gang problems.

“This turned out to be perfect timing,” she said.

But the community groups said it was not enough.

Spokesman Mark Ryavec proposed moving two officers from each of the city’s other 14 City Council districts to patrol the beach on weekends, because residents from all over go there.

Jim Merlino, president of the Venice Chamber of Commerce, said the beach community pays more in taxes to the city than it gets in services, including police. “What we want from the city is just our fair share of city services,” Merlino said.

Besides asking for police from other parts of the city, the business leaders suggested other ways to get more officers on the boardwalk. One idea was to free police from traffic control at the crowded beach by having the Department of Transportation take over that duty.

The merchants also suggested putting more officers along the short stretch near Muscle Beach, where gangs from around the city have clashed on recent Sundays. It was a fight in that area between South-Central Los Angeles gangs last weekend that prompted police to clear the boardwalk, sending thousands of tourists home early.

While most praised that action, struggling business owners urged police to avoid future closures.

“Shutting down the beach on a weekly basis is not going to work. We’re having a hard enough time with the bad economy,” Heumann said.

The action, which received national attention, was a sobering one for a place known as a loopy, but generally peaceful, year-round playground for bicyclists, roller-skaters and curiosity-seekers from around the world. It put boardwalk businesses in the awkward position of defending the place as safe almost all the time, while calling for a vastly increased police presence.

“We all hope this beach is going to be a peaceful and nice (place),” said Hwan Song, head of the Venice Korean Chamber of Commerce.

But some boardwalk regulars criticized the emphasis on more police, saying it would end up excluding minority residents who visit the boardwalk from all over the city.

“They want to seal it off and monitor people coming in here. They want the tourists here but they don’t want the people of the city,” said boardwalk artist Solomon Ali. He said adding more police would be like adding dynamite to the mix.

Ali said the real problem is inner-city blight--and Venice is not immune. “There’s not jobs, no resources or anything,” he said. “This is the city of Los Angeles. What’s happening in L.A. happens here.”

Times staff writer Lee Harris contributed to this story.