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# Hand-outs to be managed on Promenade?
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/hand-outs-to-be-managed-on-promenade/
- Published: 2005-06-28T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T07:18:43.000Z
- Author: Carolyn Sackariason
- Tags: Government & Politics, Promenade, #archive-import

*GIVEAWAYS, from page 1 Bayside looks to City Hall for help managing giveaways*

PROMENADE — Getting free-bies from corporate giants along one of the busiest outdoor shopping malls in the country may soon be curtailed by City Hall.

The business of handing out free products to Third Street Promenade visitors apparently is getting out of hand and needs to be better managed, said Kathleen Rawson, executive director of the Bayside District Corp., which manages downtown Santa Monica in conjunction with City Hall.

Rawson brought the issue up last week during a Bayside board of directors meeting, informing the board that City Hall staff is in the process of drafting a memo to the City Council that suggests a law ought to be made to manage corporations who use the public street to promote their products.

“We have struggled with this issue on and off for years,”

Rawson told the board. “Right now, it’s a free for all.”

Earlier this month, there were eight different companies in one week handing out their wares along the three-block-long mall, Rawson said. The Promenade is a public street, which allows people to exercise their constitutional rights. Corporations handing out freebies falls under the First Amendment.

> “We’ll have two or three different (companies) all over this place (in one day) with no rhyme or reason,”

> “It’s really taking advantage of free speech...” — Rawson said

And just as the Promenade is a draw to activists and performers to exercise their constitutional rights, corporations also use those rights to promote their products.

The difference, however, is that City Hall has a 10-page ordinance regulating street performing, built with layers of restrictions that were designed from experience over the years.

No such law exists for corporations like Pepsi who hire people to hand out free cans of soda on a hot summer day along the Promenade. Or for Wrigley’s, which often hands out chewing gum that ultimately ends up caked onto the pavement for city workers to clean up, Bayside officials say.

“I find it so frustrating and unbelievable with all of the strict laws we have that this kind of activity is allowed,” Rawson said. “I’ve hit my frustration level with trying to deal with it for so many years.”

Bayside board member Wally Marks suggested that allowing corporate giveaways provides an unfair advantage for local businesses who are selling the same products the companies are giving away, yet they are paying rent.

“It’s interesting we don’t allow any vendors and this is like a billboard,” he said.

Bayside officials hope the City Attorney’s office will draft an ordinance that will manage the companies in terms of where and when they can give out their products, as well as logistical issues like loading and unloading off of the Promenade. A draft ordinance could come to the City Council by October, officials said. A fee might even be assessed to companies in exchange for the benefit they get from the exposure the Promenade offers them.

“We really need some help with this,” Rawson said.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 28, 2005.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/062805.pdf?ref=smdp.com)