In an effort to assist companies bounce again from the pandemic, Santa Monica’s Metropolis Council accepted a movement Tuesday that can convert its Third Avenue Promenade into an leisure zone by permitting guests to purchase alcoholic drinks from taking part companies and drink them outdoors.
The “Leisure Zone” shall be situated between Wilshire Boulevard and Broadway throughout the 1200 and 1400 blocks of the Promenade. The brand new ingesting coverage will go into impact in June from 6 p.m. to 2 p.m. each Friday by Sunday.
Contributors must be 21 years or older, put on a wristband and purchase alcoholic drinks from taking part and licensed companies.
Third Avenue Promenade, a once-thriving industrial district of retailers, eating places and bars, has seen declining foot site visitors for years, dropping by greater than third since 2019.
At its lowest level in the course of the pandemic across the finish of 2020 and into 2021, vacancies amongst storefronts alongside the Promenade elevated to between 30% and 35%, based on Devin Klein, a property dealer with JLL. By 2024, it was between 20% and 25%.
“We consider that the leisure zone can have a constructive affect in downtown, not solely by boosting foot site visitors and supporting native companies but additionally by encouraging leasing in a one-of-a-kind space just like the Third Avenue Promenade, which is already constructed out to be an leisure zone,” Downtown Santa Monica Inc. Chief Government Andrew Thomas mentioned on the Metropolis Council assembly on Tuesday.
“I contemplate us to be the outside patio for our downtown neighborhood,” he added.
Companies in Santa Monica have suffered because the pandemic and the January wildfires. However not all residents have been supportive of the brand new ordinance, with some telling the council that they have been involved that points akin to crime and homelessness may very well be exacerbated by the brand new ingesting ordinance.
“Most unsafe metropolis within the state,” resident Denise Barton mentioned in the course of the assembly. “In case you have no management over the homeless, by not offering the town with sufficient police, how will this motion create extra management over these points?”
