Chalk it up to a learning experience

So it seems the Downtown Association reads indybay! I had just sat down on the sidewalk to chalk and an employee of O'Neills (Steve) came out and asked me not to chalk. According to Steve, Oneills owns that whole corner at Pacific and Cooper and it is ALL private property (not true). Steve also informed me that chalking was illegal and that he would call the police if I didn't go away. Seems the DTA had a meeting yesterday over this very issue and wanted to make sure I didn't chalk there.

So I waited. I did not chalk with the chalk I had just purchased from Palace Arts right across the street. While I waited, I asked people if they knew that sidewalk chalk is illegal in Santa Cruz. No one had ever heard of such a thing. Robert Norse showed up, as well as some other folks wanting to chalk. One person drew a couple of circles on the sidewalk. The police arrived (3 cops and two cars) and gave him a ticket.... for drawing a couple of circles which will be gone by now because it is raining.

Two officers stayed , protecting the corner from chalk for over an hour, with their car blocking one lane of traffic on Pacific Avenue. At one point, making it difficult for a fire truck to pass. Initially, the cops were rude and short-tempered. After Robert Norse left, they calmed down a bit. Seems this anti-chalk enforcement stems from a giant chalk-in August 2007 (though Becky Johnson was cited back in 2003). During that chalk-in, there was chalk all over downtown, some of it racist and obscene. One officer spent 10 hours taking reports from downtown businesses to try to catch the culprits. He wrote no tickets, caught no felons. Yes, folks, last August was considered to be felony chalking because of how much money it cost to clean up washable chalk. It seems to me it would take less than 10 hours to just hose the chalk off.

I was advised at one point to go home and chalk on my sidewalk. I asked, "but isn't that still illegal?" Yes, but no downtown business would complain.

This is the law, been on the books for a while. It doesn't say "chalk" anywhere. They've gone and used it to make sidewalk chalk a crime. Oh, excuse me.... an infraction.

MC 9.20.010 UNAUTHORIZED - AUTHORITY.
No person shall paint, write or otherwise place or affix upon any public curb or sidewalk in the city, any advertisements of any kind or character whatsoever, or any signs, marks, or paint, other than official traffic signs, marks or paint placed thereon in accordance with law, except as hereinafter provided. The director of public works may authorize, in writing, the painting, placing, or affixing of house numbers, pedestrian safety signs, or other markings serving a public interest.
(Ord NS 597, 1964: prior code § 4272).

The City Council spends our tax dollars to enact laws that take away our right to public space and then spends more taxpayers' money to selectively enforce those laws. We need to stop allowing the police to be a tool of the downtown businesses!