BART Cop Murder Trial to Move to Downtown L.A., Lawyer Predicts More L.A. Riots
Video of the Day: Your East Side Moment of Zen
Sobriety Checkpoint in Sherman Oaks Tonight
Nearly $10 Million Owed to LAUSD by Teachers Who Were Mistakenly Overpaid
The Great L.A. Walk Treks Adams & Washington Today
If assigning large numbers of officers to patrol bicycle rides wasn't enough, the Santa Monica Police Department is now making sure people don't exercise in the wrong spot. If you do, you could end up with a $158 citation and possibly be put in the back of a squad car as online music company exec James Birch was.
"I was more than a little outraged that as a taxpayer I was no longer able to use public property for exercising," he told the LA Times. The crux of the problem is the medians along 4th Street near Adelaide Drive where people run, walk, jog--all legal activities under city code--and stopping in place to work out--a citable offense.
A public meeting is set for tonight where residents from both sides of the issue will speak out to the city, according to the Times. However, any mention of said meeting is not easily found on the city's website.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
What a load of bull s#%t!! Argggg. SMPD really needs to chill the hell out and find something useful to do, like maybe fight crime or something of that nature.
Have you seen the crime map of SMPD? IT shows that crime is quite low. Maybe there are just to many police officers in Santa Monica that have nothing to do? Are they bored with nothing to do? Maybe we need to either give them extra jobs to do when they can't find crime or give some of them a day off? Maybe they could lend Some Santa Monica Police officers to LAPD and send them down to South Central to help with crime down there. We are all Neighbors, what helps one helps us all.
as you all know,
"The Devil finds work for idol hands"
If you lived in the neighborhood you might feel differently. The Santa Monica steps have gotten out of hand... personal trainers working their clients out like it's Gold's Gym or Equinox, people driving in from all over the Westside, the noise and trash showing a real lack of respect for the neighborhood... sorry, I don't have a problem with the city trying to get a handle on this. If you don't like it, I suggest you stay close to home and get your work out at 24 Hour Fitness
Maybe now Critical Mass can let go of the persecution complex :)
Back in the 80's, a couple of Santa Monica cops caught us tossing a roach as we got out of the car in a parking structure. They gave us the option of flushing what we had, or getting a ticket. We flushed it.
Probably would end up in jail if that happened today.
I get the impression that Johnny Black and much of the the Santa Monica City Council would like to see Santa Monica become a giant retirement community where everyone stays at home, attractions that might bring out youthful and active people would be shut down. Lets squeeze out everything attractive about Santa Monica so "outsiders" stop coming here, is the feeling I get.
Is a $158 citation and being put in a squad car really necessary for this?
If people are being disrespectful and throwing trash, then ticket them for littering, not exercising in a public space. This is getting out of hand. Also I'm getting a little tired of your constant phrase, if you don't like it go home, Johnny Black. Well Santa Monica is my home and I do not approve of this. 24 hour fitness is not a substitute for enjoying being out in our public spaces.
If one looks at a map of the area where tickets are flying you'll see that it's a residential area consisting of multi-million dollar homes. Apparently it's the home-owners who are raising a stink.
So does this mean that some Santa Monica residents are more equal than others? Or perhaps it means that if you are rich you own the police and if you aren't rich you get tickets?
It's a reflection of the attitude that this city is for "me", and no one else. I feel it's a similar force behind Prop T., it's not really very effective as a means of traffic management, and far better solutions exist. What it's really about is freezing Santa Monica in place so we keep anything interesting from happening here, which might cause interactions, with those "other" people.
This is what happens when the liberal extreme gets power. It often sounds like a good alternative to the craziness of conservatives, but ends up totally fascist as well.
Santa Monica is the 5th Reich
I'm still confused as to what's illegal here.
""This is what happens when the liberal extreme gets power.""
THAT's the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard.
As a SaMo resident, I can honestly say that the SMPD is a bunch of douchebags, especially since Chief Butts left the department. They sit and idle on the sidewalk outside my balcony for the entire weekend -- running u-turn traps and writing tickets to people riding their bikes on the sidewalk. Yet I am forced to defend myself with a baseball bat when the colony of vagrants that live outside try and scale my fence on a weekly basis. We had a domestic dispute in the building a few weeks ago -- took the cops over 30 minutes to respond while the neighbors had to restrain this drunk mofo.
Fuck the police.
I'm pretty sure this type of fine is unconstitutional. People have a right to assemble FOR ANY REASON as long as it does not pose a danger to or infringe on the rights of others. The most that a law enforcement officer could do is ask someone to move elsewhere. Whoever gets the ticket should fight to the highest judicial authority possible.
As a resident of this area, the fitness usage of the said park is considerably out of hand. Just this Tues leaving my place there was a group of 15 people doing exercises in the median. When I com home from work there are innumerable people walking around there going to and from the stairs. This is at dusk when the light is bad and there are no streetlights illuminating the 'park'. This causes a hazard to drivers and pedestrains alike which could result in accidents. Also all the increases usage of the area makes parking there difficult. One solution would be permit parking for residents only.
Oh my god people are doing fitness! Call out the national guard. People should be at home watching television or getting their brief lapses of physical activity at exclusive membership sanctioned treadmill facilities.
4th street is not burning man hippie. Some usage is great but it has gotten too crowded. the current infrastructure cannot handle the usage. The 4th street area is not central park.
So now people who think it's an unnecessary use of police force to be handing out $158 tickets for exercising are all hippies from burning man. Wow.
The SMPD doesn't understand working with people to find a solution, they just hit the ground and start handing out big fines and throwing people into cop cars. If it really is too much, then work out a peaceful solution. Is the heavy hand of police crack downs necessary for every little thing a group of residents decides they don't like. The police are there to serve and protect, not carry out your mission to remove any group of people you would prefer to go somewhere else by force.
Re. this; "What it's really about is freezing Santa Monica in place so we keep anything interesting from happening here, which might cause interactions, with those "other" people."
As someone born and raised in SaMo, I'd like to respectfully disagree. This measure is about preventing irresponsible development from companies who wish to take advantage of the city's reputation as a premier tourist destination, without regard for the greater impact on the city as a whole. As you know, the scale is small, the traffic is already a problem.
Obviously this is a problem all over Los Angeles too (see the Waldorf Astoria project, for example), where the lot in question is treated by the developer as if it were an island in the city instead of a greater part of whole urban planning picture. Santa Monica is just smaller, more liberal, and has more organized citizens who have the power to do something.
By the way, I think the proposed parking pay-out is a GREAT idea, and one that should definitely be implimented. Sometimes the solution to a problem involves several approaches.
As for interesting things happening, I don't think there's been any danger of that for at least 15 years :)
sounds like those smug santa monica assholes cops again.
I love the east side
The problem with Prop T is that it makes no distinction between what is responsible commercial development, and what isn't. It very crudely caps all of it. I don't want another strip mall or water gardens more than anyone else does, but there are kinds of development that can actually be part of the traffic solution that will be stunted by Prop T. Mixed use and transit oriented development, along with small shops near residential can actually reduce car trips.
It's already so expensive to set up shop in Santa Monica, and this will make it worse. When the cost of doing business goes too high, large corporate operations become the only ones left who can afford the overhead to get started. If Prop T. passes I picture what development does happen will all go the way of cookie cutter corporate shops, a trend that has already been in motion.
Well actually, Prop T just LIMITS the square footage of commercial development each year - thereby discouraging Water Garden and shopping mall type places.
To be realistic Gary, with commercial rents the way they are in SaMo, large companies like the Gap, etc. are going to be the only ones who can afford to rent in those type of places ANYWAY.
As it is, those stores actually LOOSE money from their locations on the Prominade, but maintain them for brand visibility.
Development in SaMo is going to be cookie cutter pretty much no matter what right now, and at least Prop T sets a reasonable limit.
Not to mention the fact that hellatious (is that a word?) traffic probably harms what little business small mom and pop shops still get. I for one am devistated about the way the tourist trade has sucked the native culture out of my hometown, but it's been like that for a while now, and at least this is ONE approach we can take to slow it down...
When exercise is made illegal, only criminals will be fit.
From what I understand, mixed use developments are considered to be commercial developments by this, and so future large scale developments are likely to be mono-culture housing. This introduces it's own set of traffic issues.
And, so as you say commercial rents are already too high. Does that justify jacking them up even higher? Is that what we want for the future of Santa Monica, a place that exists for brand identity for the few who can afford to run a business here.
Prop T also lacks any accountability for producing results or any system for measuring it's effects either positively or negatively. We need traffic solutions, that is obvious, but I feel Prop T is an oversimplification of a complex problem, and will do very little to help.
It shifts the blame for traffic on development rather than unnecessary car trips. There are proven ways to reduce rates of car use, some already exist but are unenforced as I mentioned on my blog, and many are in the LUCE document that the City Council has been stalling on.
Coming back to the topic on hand, if people are driving out of their way to come to these traffic medians, than let's start charging meter parking rates with an exception for residents. It will discourage overflow while generating city revenue for those who consider it valuable enough to pay for.
Much of our excess traffic flow stems from too much freely available or under priced parking, which has been established by a number of traffic studies. Prop T is not a traffic solution, it is solely an anti build anything measure. A real traffic solution measure would include some parking reform.
Gradually jack up the cost of parking in Santa Monica (with some exceptions for residents) and you have problem solved. The reasons to come here will still be there, so many will seek alternatives (walk, bike, bus, someday train) or be more frugal about car trips, and some will choose not to make the trip. Combine this with enforcing the traffic cash-out law to give employees and incentive to consider alternatives, and Santa Monica traffic problems will be well on their way to relative calm.
If the SaMo police have this must extra time, then maybe the city should take some of their unnecessary funding and put it to use elsewhere.
From the LA TIMES: "Residents report that joggers also discard water bottles, urinate on people's plants, occasionally scrawl graffiti and mill about in the narrow, curvy street, creating a hazard for themselves and drivers"
Yeah, sounds like the cops are out of line! How dare they prevent someone from using a resident's lawn as a toilet. Take it to 24 Hour Fitness, hippie!
Just because residents report it doesn't make it true. I could call on any group of people I didn't like and make up charges too. And like I said if people are in fact littering, hand out some littering citations.
I'm not advocating disrespectful behavior, but using public space as a place to work out should not be a crime. If people are doing blatantly disrespectful things, than you cite them for those things. Also as I mentioned there are solutions to this that could benefit everyone without having to use excessive police force. But residents would prefer to have the SMPD be their personal guard dogs that they can sic on anyone they don't like than do anything like come up with a real solution.
Furthermore, the calling everyone who does anything you don't like a hippie is really getting tired. It's not much different from people in politics calling anyone they don't like a socialist or closet commie.
Public space is for the people, if you don't like it, why don't you move to a gated community, sounds like what you would really like. That would stop all that interaction with people you might disagree with.
Gary, your solutions sound intreguing and promising.
However, if I lived in SaMo (which I don't anymore), I would still vote on T. The last thing that city needs is a Grove-type nightmare.
Also, I don't see your point about commercial rents - how would this cause them to go up?? Commercial rents are going to be high on any new development, and it's not as if with increased supply, rents on older buildings are going to decrease. So it's not as if by creating new spaces you are going to be opening the doors for an influx of mom and pop businesess. It's just going to be more of the same corporate stores.
Additionally, mixed-use development would be possible with commercial on the ground floor, if the housing above is 100% affordable.
Make no mistake, this is to prevent rampant and inappropriate run away development in a small city that creates horrendus traffic- not curtail building of any kind or mixed-use.
I thoroughly applaud your ideas about reducing traffic and vehicular dependance (I don't have a car either), but I honestly think Prop T is a well intentioned and well thought out measure that the city needs, and opposing it is pretty counter-productive to the goal of a more livable Santa Monica.
Hindinwood,
For a more detailed description for how this can have repercussions for rents on existing business, check out this post on the norift blog, a site that includes a lot of arguments against prop T that go beyond the simple talking points in the mass mailers, and is not affiliated with the no on T campaign .
I'm not entirely opposed to the general idea, but I'm skeptical that it will produce results, and it has no built in time-line or way to measure benefits or consequences. There are enough flaws that I feel it should not be passed. We are on the cusp of much better and more comprehensive ideas in the LUCE document which has been taking input from citizens and urban planning specialists for a long time now.
Since sort of picking up transportation planning as a hobby I want to become more actively involved in local politics in the coming year to push for some of the idea's I've been talking about. A lot of the solutions are already out there in places like Copenhagen, which has over the course of it's long term transportation plan struck an amazing balance of about 1/3 private transit, 1/3 public transit and 1/3 cycling and walking.
"Just because residents report it doesn't make it true. I could call on any group of people I didn't like and make up charges too. And like I said if people are in fact littering, hand out some littering citations."
Agreed, but it is true that people are littering and disrespecting the area by urinating in peoples lawns and damaging property. This is a fact. Also the heightened usage of the area has increased traffic. This is something the city has to address before there are general safety issues there. There are stairs all over the city, Silverlake for example, but people from Silverlake are driving to these stairs because of the scnery of the area and the ease of use etc. So if this place is now a tourist attraction then the city has to do something about it.
4th street,
Did you read any of the alternative solutions I proposed, I went over all of this. And you can't expect the city to know how to handle every situation that arises, you have to work with the city, and the people involved, to come up with a solution. Making a community work takes input from all sides, not waiting for top down action to solve everything for you.
Also, you say the alleged property damage and public urination by the exercise enthusiasts is a fact. That's a bold claim, prove it. Where is your evidence? Doesn't sound like a fact to me. The LA Times wrote it in the paper doesn't make it a fact, especially these days.
As I mentioned earlier, if traffic is an issue because people are driving out of their way for this, charge for non residents to park around there and it will discourage excess and provide city revenue for those who consider it worth paying for.
Sending in the police to ticket people exercising is an absurd solution. People talk about they want Santa Monica to be their quaint little beach town, but since when does draconian use of police force equate with beach town vibe?
Were you at the meeting last night?
The public defecation issue was brought up many times by homeowners adjacent to the stairs.
I agree we have to work with the city and alternate solutions are viable. People are being ticketed for holding training classes in the median. That is what the issue is. The median is not a park where training clases can be held by boot camp type physical trainers. Do you agree at least on that point?
4th Street Resident, please e-mail me at zach@laist.com. I would love for you to take some photos this weekend of people crowding the area and getting tickets or whatever you see and send them over. We'll post them.
4th street,
Public defecation wasn't mentioned in the article, it was claims of urination, and still none of this has been proven to have any relationship to the people doing exercises, who if anything make things like public defection less likely by introducing witnesses at odd hours. People living by the stairs bringing up claims of defecation does not prove it happened, and if it did, which I'm not denying may be truthful, it still doesn't connect it to the people out jogging, who are one type of public space user.
Regrettably my work schedule makes it difficult to make it to community meetings during the week, but I agree boot camp style training in the middle of a traffic median is going a bit over board. If there is any kind of transcript of the meeting I'd love to see it.
However, my issue with this entire thing, is the way the police force is used in this city. Singling out a guy to give a $158 fine and throwing him in a cop car is not a democratic way to reach a solution. If trainers are making a profit from use of the public traffic medians, than perhaps they should be required to purchase some sort of permit, or as I mentioned over and over again, parking reform could fix most traffic problems in this city.