New Rules for Santa Monica Street Performers

Baseball has its seventh-inning stretch. Buckingham Palace has its changing of the guard. And now, Santa Monica has its street performer shuffle.

An emergency ordinance passed by the seaside city this week requires sidewalk entertainers and vendors to stand 40 feet apart, and to pack up and move 120 feet every two hours while working the Third Street Promenade or Santa Monica Pier, the city’s most famous tourist attractions.

The reason: Merchants have complained that a plague of troubadours and curbside entrepreneurs is creating crowds but scaring away customers. Booming amplifiers, no-talent hacks and freelance tattoo artists are making the world-famous venues look like low-rent swap meets, they say.

“We like a lot to have performers on the street, but if it’s too noisy customers will leave,” said Philippe Haleaux, manager of the promenade’s Matisse restaurant. “Others have left because they had to watch a bare foot or half a buttock getting tattooed while they were eating.”

But the targets of the new law--a motley crew of balloon twisters, one-man bands, struggling actors, jugglers and dancers--are incensed.

Branding the ordinance an un-American infringement of their right to free speech, some have threatened to counter with a lawsuit, while one local gadfly has launched a hunger strike to demonstrate his sympathy.

“Welcome to the Soviet Union,” said Roy Mayhew, a 40-year-old henna tattooer and sidewalk chalk artist. “Making us move is harassment. This is a public street.”

On any given day, the three-block promenade attracts 15,000 to 40,000 visitors with its mix of mom-and-pop storefronts, chain retail stores, restaurants and movie theaters. Santa Monica officials say live performers and street vendors, of which there are 500 registered to do business in the city, are a crucial element in the promenade’s allure.

Yet they fear that things have gotten out of hand over the last two years. Some of the sidewalk audiences have become unmanageable, they say, and there have been nasty squabbles between entertainers vying for prime sidewalk space.

Their answer has been yet another round of regulation. The city passed two previous ordinances that placed tougher restrictions on street performers, but they were never enforced.

Officials say they are serious about following through on this week’s ordinance. The City Council handled it as an emergency measure so it could take effect immediately, in time for the summer crowds.

Still, in keeping with the city’s reputation for tolerance and liberal intentions, city officials and merchants say they want to take a reasoned approach. Enforcement won’t begin for a week or two, long enough to let the idea sink in.

And rather than call police right away, merchants have agreed to hire a mediator at $37,000 a year to first try to persuade reluctant balladeers and vendors to follow the law.

“The idea is that there won’t be this ironfisted enforcement,” said Kathleen Rawson, executive director of the Bayside District Corp., a not-for-profit economic development group whose board members are appointed by the City Council.

Performers, who have seen sporadic crackdowns in the past, view this as the Big One--and a big mistake.

Making entertainers and their audiences adhere to a strict schedule of “musical chairs” will only make for greater street chaos, while discouraging the more talented entertainers from showing up, they argue.

“None of the good performers will want to deal with the hassle,” said Sonny Soohoo, 20, a mime and magician. “Only the people without a life will be here.”

About 10 performers and vendors held a news conference Thursday to denounce the ordinance. Local activist Jerry Rubin said he would start a hunger strike to protest what he termed an unjust law.

Then, to underscore its resolve, the ragtag group began an impromptu march to carry the message to the Bayside District Corp. board of directors, which happened to be meeting at its nearby offices.

The confrontation was delayed, however, when Rubin and the entertainers got stuck in an elevator at the board offices for 20 minutes. When police finally pried the sweaty protesters loose, they asked the business group to ease off from imposing the ordinance so everyone could talk some more about the problem.

The board politely refused, and now both sides are gearing up for what seems to be the inevitable clash, 1990s-style.

“It’s another summer and another fight,” said Mayhew, the henna tattooer. “Only this time I need to get a lawyer.”