Council Wants to Bring the Performers Back to Venice

The fire breather’s gone. So is the musician who lugged his piano to the Venice Boardwalk every weekend. Even the snake charmer hasn’t been seen in months.

Saying that it unwittingly banished these characters from Venice Beach, the Los Angeles City Council moved Wednesday to bring back the performers and artists who have been crowded out by T-shirt and sunglasses salesmen, and even by the homey craftspeople selling beaded bracelets and earrings, among other things.

The council’s action, the latest in the years-long wrangling over the legal rights of beach vendors, revises a law approved last year. The revision is designed to protect performers and others who rely on donations from their audience but are not selling anything.

In addition, Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, whose district includes Venice, wants the city’s Cultural Affairs Department to wage an all-out, aggressive campaign to lure performers and artists back to the beach and to examine the possibility of a permit system for them.

“Summer is coming,” Galanter said. “We need to get something in place that is better than what we have on the books today. . . . We want to make the situation better and easier for the artists who’ve been there a long time.”

Several performers and others who make their livelihood on Ocean Front Walk supported the move, appearing in the council chambers in their straw hats, muscle T-shirts and sandals with socks.

“Today’s a victory,” said Jerry Rubin, founder of Save the Healers, Artists, Politicos and Entertainers, who now lives in Santa Monica. “Can you believe the Venice Beach performers and artists have never been protected before today?”

After a successful court challenge to a city law regulating vending on Ocean Front Walk, the council last year agreed to allow vendors to remain there as long as they were just soliciting and accepting donations.

But the law, according to the Los Angeles Police Department, proved to be highly problematic and virtually unenforceable because of the difficulty of distinguishing between out-and-out selling and accepting donations in exchange for merchandise.

As a result, the west side of the boardwalk has become a virtual flea market, forcing the palm readers, political activists, skating jugglers and all the others to compete with vendors hawking shirts, sunglasses, souvenirs and sneakers.

Eventually, many of the performers moved on to the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica and Universal CityWalk.

The revised law bans sales and donations for merchandise--though not for performances--unless painters, photographers or sculptors sell their own work, bearing their signatures.

But one more problem exists. In getting rid of the illegal salespeople, the council may also be getting rid of the crafts vendors, who also earn a living on the boardwalk.

“These craftspeople do contribute to the ambience and the nice feeling of Venice,” said Nonya Finkelstein, who frequently sells her handmade crafts on the boardwalk.

Councilman Joel Wachs, an art aficionado, said he worries that the law could too narrowly define art.

“It’s a very, very difficult distinction to be made,” Wachs said. “We want to encourage creative expression.”

Galanter said she will work with the Cultural Affairs Department to deal with that issue.

But in the meantime, the council declared the west side of Ocean Front Walk a “free speech zone” and sanctuary for performers, artists, entertainers and activists.

In other words, the man who walks on broken, crushed bottles to tape-recorded music can stay.