[Rhodes22-list] "I Love L.A." , Randy Newman (1983)

[Ben Cittadino]

>From Today's  NY TIMES- You can't make this stuff up.
 


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November 25, 2008
Santa Monica Journal
Where the Traffic Median Is a No-Pilates Zone 
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
SANTA MONICA, Calif. — From his squad car on a sun-drenched corner, Lemont
Davis, a Santa Monica park ranger, spotted the perpetrator: white male, 40
to 45 years old, feet pressed against palm tree, legs fully extended in
situp position. 

Mr. Davis strode from his vehicle, stopping just feet from the wide traffic
median where Kieran Clarke was clearly breaking the law. “Sorry, sir,” he
said, “I need to inform you that this area is for walking and jogging only.”
Mr. Clarke, who had been working his abdominals, stood up and quietly walked
away.

That warning the other day was among hundreds that have been issued in a
culturally tumultuous crackdown by Santa Monica officials against violators
of a city ordinance, rarely enforced till now, that bars congregating on
traffic medians. 

The target is increasingly loud, littering and generally intrusive groups of
exercisers who gather from dawn until dusk along the Fourth Street median.
The ocean view, the air and for some the architectural spectacle have
transformed the area into a huge outdoor gym rimmed by multimillion-dollar
homes. 

In the last six months, park rangers, dispatched by the Santa Monica Police
Department in response to complaining neighbors, have stationed themselves
on the corner of Fourth Street and Adelaide Drive during much of the day, at
the ready to break up any unauthorized kickboxing. “I agree with the
residents that they should not be rousted out of bed by a professional gym
instructor at 6 in the morning saying, ‘One, two, three, four!’ ” said Bobby
Shriver, a Santa Monica city councilman (“Recently re-elected with an even
greater margin than I won by last time!”), who lives on Adelaide Drive but
says he did not request the enforcement.

Since the patrols began, the city has issued eight citations for the
flouting of the median law — the fine is $158 — and has given warnings,
which are generally heeded, to about 600 people a month. 

“Most people will comply,” said Mr. Davis, the park ranger.

While the median ordinance covers every grassy stretch of its kind in the
city, the one at Fourth Street is where the workout overload occurs.

The area has long been a runner’s paradise, and people also use it to sprint
up and down an enormous set of concrete steps that lead to the beach. “The
use of the median has been going on for years,” Mr. Shriver said, adding
that what has apparently happened more recently “is the commercialization by
these boot-camp-type groups.”

Naturally a fair share of exercisers are unhappy with the new enforcement,
and at a recent City Council meeting, officials batted the matter around:
Would the law withstand legal challenges? What constitutes too “early” to be
awoken by whistles? But there was no resolution.

Now a community meeting to address median use is set for Jan. 8, “just to
see if we can’t get some common-sense solutions,” said Kate Vernez,
assistant to the city manager.

“What we are trying to do,” Ms. Vernez said, “is mediate between residents
who have seen an uptick in use of the median, with pickup gyms and the like,
and the exercisers.”

James Birch, a music executive from the neighborhood, is among those Santa
Monicans who have not taken well to enforcement of the law, which was passed
in the 1970s and, it is believed, was intended to keep vagrants away.

After 15 years of working out on the median, Mr. Birch arrived there one day
in mid-September and saw five officers. “I went up to them,” he recalled,
“and said, ‘What’s the deal here?’ They put up these trendy new yellow
signs. The cops just looked at me and said, ‘We’ve been told by the watch
commander that we’re supposed to run people off here.’ I told them I was
going to break the law.”

So he did. One morning he showed up at the median, video crew in tow, and
refused to cease doing situps. The exchange that followed was posted on
YouTube.

“They let me do it for about three minutes,” said Mr. Birch, 63, “and then
came over and said: ‘If you continue doing this, I will arrest you. It’s not
allowed here.’ ”

Though he was arrested, he said, the officers did not handcuff him, to his
chagrin. “I asked them to,” he said. “But they found out they could only do
what was procedurally appropriate.”

He did get a ticket, though, and now awaits his day in court. 

“I just want to go and do my push-ups and situps that I have been doing for
15 minutes three times a week for the last 15 years,” he said. 

On a recent morning, the area was alive with joggers, some of them pushing
strollers, others walking large dogs; a dozen people with demeanors ranging
from doleful to boastful trotting up the steps; and at least one trainer
pushing his client to move it.

An extremely fit woman of indeterminate Los Angeles age pulled her Mercedes
up to the curb on Adelaide Drive, popped open her trunk, pulled out a
five-pound weight and began lifting. 

Geoff Parcells, who was running along the street, said that he sympathized
with residents but that the area “is a public place” and that he did not
quite know how to view the enhanced enforcement. 

“If I lived here and there were all really good-looking people working out,
I probably wouldn’t mind,” said Mr. Parcells, 45. “So I guess it depends on
who parks in front of your house.

Happy Thanksgiving;

Ben C.
  
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