CITY HALL — There will be no in-line skates allowed on the Third Street Promenade.
In his last meeting on the dais, City Councilman Mike Feinstein last week failed to convince his colleagues the ban on rolling transport shouldn’t be applied to skates.
Feinstein, an avid in-line skater, spoke passionately against the current law, saying it unfairly discriminates against a group of residents that doesn’t readily organize. Biking, skateboarding and skating currently are banned on the popular, pedestrian-only walkway.
“This is a public space that we have spent millions of dollars to create essentially a public watering hole, and it’s not about whether one goes there to shop, it’s about whether our city center is open to skaters as well as anyone else,” Feinstein said. “We are in effect banning them from going there as far as when they go out.” In-line skaters, unlike skate-boarders, don’t pose a threat because the skates are attached and can’t get away from the rider, argued Feinstein, who said banning skates on the Promenade unfairly shuts out skaters, who don’t normally carry shoes with them.
“There’s a disturbing trend that I felt on this council the last few years of a lack of tolerance for alternative lifestyles,” Feinstein
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 29, 2004. Read the original PDF.