A Red Flag for Cruisers on the Strip

You’re welcome to come enjoy the weekend scene at the Sunset Strip. Just don’t show up more than twice a night.

That’s the warning from West Hollywood officials who tonight will begin cracking down on car cruising along Sunset Boulevard’s popular stretch of nightclubs, hotels and restaurants between Crescent Heights Boulevard and Doheny Drive.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies at checkpoints will monitor the number of times cars travel east and west along the boulevard and issue tickets to drivers and passengers that they catch traveling back and forth more than twice.

Enforcement will take place Friday and Saturday nights from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. Fines will range up to $500, officials said.

The West Hollywood City Council enacted the anti-cruising ordinance last month in response to complaints about traffic jams and noise in the Sunset Strip area.

“Sunset Strip is a destination for a lot of people. It was attracting younger people from all over the county to see and be seen. They were not going to clubs or restaurants, but were cruising,” said West Hollywood Mayor Jeffrey Prang.

As part of the crackdown, deputies will also step up enforcement of other criminal and municipal ordinances, including those aimed at jaywalking, trespassing on private property, loud amplified music from vehicles and drinking in public, said Richard Ryan, of the city’s Public Safety Division.

The cruising ban follows similar steps taken by cities across the Los Angeles area. Police enforcement along Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, Whittier Boulevard in East Los Angeles and Laurel Canyon Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley’s Mission Hills area have dramatically cut traffic congestion there in recent years, authorities said.

West Hollywood deputies stationed at checkpoints between Hammond Street and Hilldale Avenue on the west and Sweetzer Avenue and Kings Road on the east will enter license plate numbers into laptop computers to keep track of how many times cars pass by.

West Hollywood’s campaign will have a lower profile than some other communities’ crackdowns, however.

Traffic barricades have been used by Los Angeles police to control traffic along Laurel Canyon Boulevard. Pico Rivera’s enforcement of a cruising ban two years ago led to a one-day total of 150 arrests and 35 cars towed.

Prang said sheriff’s deputies will be given discretion in handing out tickets. “If you’re driving around looking for a place to park so you can go to a club or restaurant, the deputy will have the flexibility to send you on your way without a ticket,” he said.

Prang said officials enacted the cruising ban after boulevard business owners and residents who live near Sunset complained about late-night weekend traffic jams and noise.

In conjunction with the anti-cruising ordinance, the city added sheriff’s bicycle and motorcycle units to the boulevard area. Officials have also assigned extra officers to enforce neighborhood parking-district restrictions.

Sunset Boulevard business operators, meanwhile, have formed a Sunset Nightclub Council to look into ways noise and trash problems can be reduced.

Two restaurant-bars that operate across the street from each other, Dublin’s and Miyagi’s, now rotate closing times, officials said.

One empties at 1:30 a.m. and the other at 2 a.m. on alternate nights. That prevents a crunch of patrons from ending up on the sidewalk at once.

“We’re willing to do everything we can to help,” Miyagi’s manager, Corby LeGault, said Thursday.

LeGault said the cruising crackdown could help other merchants whose customers have trouble reaching the businesses because of traffic congestion.

“Sunset Boulevard is a really important business street for the city,” agreed Joan English, director of transportation for West Hollywood.

“We have a lot of vibrant night life. We want to make sure that activities there don’t bother adjacent neighbors and that cruising doesn’t interfere with people’s ability to get to businesses on the Strip.”