In Tuesday night’s somewhat drawn out City Council meeting, councilmembers voted unanimously 7-0 to hear and approve a new ordinance (Section 3.75) of the Santa Monica Municipal Code that will prohibit harassment of bicyclists and provides a private right of action in civil court for violations.
The ordinance would not be enforced by City officials and would not require the expenditure of City resources, other than potentially some educational efforts. For this section, the definition of “bicycle” is expanded to include not only vehicles propelled solely by human power, but also those propelled by a combination of human and electric power.
“This is an ordinance that largely mirrors what Los Angeles has done. It would prohibit certain activities directed at bicyclists and provide civil remedies for the injured or aggrieved cyclist. Importantly, up front we have updated the definition of ‘bicycle’ to include not just human propelled bicycles, but also a combination of human and electric powered,” explained City Attorney Doug Sloan, adding, “So, that’s new.”
“Defining activities would prohibit physically assaulting or attempting to physically assault bicyclists because of their status of a bicyclist, threatening to physically injure a cyclist, threatening to physically injure, including by road, cyclists because of being a cyclist. intentionally distracting or attempting to distract a cyclist, intentionally forcing or attempting to enforce a bicyclist off the street or bike lane,” Sloan said.
“It’s important to note that these are purely civil remedies,” he said before clarifying that this does not require city resources to enforce this — it is not criminal. So an aggrieved individual can bring a civil action against the perpetrator. It can include if they’re liable for damages for three times heir actual damage for each violation or $1,000, whichever is greater. Moreover, they can recover attorney fees and potentially punitive damages.
“It expressly says it does not constitute a misdemeanor or infraction. And that’s essentially it,” he said.
Unsurprisingly, this was met with positive reactions from everyone on the dais. Councilmember Jesse Zwick, himself a keen cyclist said, “While it doesn’t solve all the issues at hand, having to do with pedestrian and cyclist safety in our city, it does provide an important form of recourse for cyclists who have faced this kind of harassment. And this is not a hypothetical [problem] it’s a real one that I hear about regularly from cyclists in our city. And I’m happy to see the council addressing it here tonight.”
Councilmember Gleam Davis raised the point that the new ordinance doesn’t include pedestrians. “Since the staff report has come out, I’ve received a number of communications from folks wondering [that] it only includes cyclists, it doesn’t include pedestrians and I’ve been hearing horror stories,” Davis said.
“They step into a crosswalk when they have the green light and somebody threatens them [or] directs their car towards them in a threatening manner,” she said, before asking Sloan if this could be included as an amendment either immediately or at a later date.
To which he responded that it could be very easily added immediately. The item was moved by Davis and seconded by Zwick.
This wasn’t the first item regarding cyclist safety that was discussed in Tuesday night’s meeting as Mayor Phil Brock pulled Consent Calendar item 5A earlier in the evening to briefly discuss different types of bike lane safety methodology for the Olympic Boulevard and 26th Street project before that item too was passed.