CITY HALL — And now the moment you’ve all been waiting for: A discussion by the city’s top elected officials about pony rides at the Farmers’ Market.
Two City Council members have requested that, upon the expiration of City Hall’s contract with a pony ride and petting zoo vendor at the Main Street Farmers’ Market, preference be given to a vendors offering “non-animal activities.”
Former congressional candidate Marcy Winograd has been leading a charge against the pony rides since April, claiming that they teach children that it’s acceptable to mistreat animals.
Vendor Tawni Angel, owner of Tawni’s Ponies, claims that the animals are not being abused, that they are happiest working, that many of her petting zoo animals have been rescued from slaughter, and that they teach children how to interact with animals. She’s been at the market since 2003.
Winograd’s online petition, posted to MoveOn.org, has slowly gained 1,250 signatures — many from notable residents. She initially called for an all-out ban of pony rides in the city.
Council members Gleam Davis and Ted Winterer have asked that the council discuss the issue at Tuesday’s meeting.
Their requests asks that City Manager to issue a vendor request “for children’s-oriented activities at the ingress/egress of the Main Street Farmers Market that gives preference to partners in our Buy Local initiative and non-animal activities, such as painting, arts and crafts, gardening, cooking, food preparation and decoration.”
“If the bids do not meet with Council’s approval,” the item states, “Council may reserve the entrance to the Main Street market for open space or dining.”
Angel’s contract expires in May.
Winterer said that residents have been troubled by the petting zoo and pony rides for years. He’s met people who boycott the Sunday Farmers’ Market because of their concerns about the animals’ welfare, he said.
“Since the worries about the animals’ well-being have been more frequently and vocally expressed in recent months,” Winterer said, “and since the contract with the current vendor expires next year, it seemed the right time to explore the options for different activities at this site and to then have a public discussion of what choice best serves the community’s needs.”
Winograd is happy with Winterer and Davis’ proposal.
“I think the council members are wise not to push for a ban on pony rides, but to instead suggest alternative children’s activities that support our city’s ‘Buy Local’ initiative,” she said.
Winograd has launched a full-fledged attack on Angel’s business — protesting at the Farmers’ Market, shedding light on Angel’s expired business license (since remedied), and citing comments and videos posted on the Facebook pages of Angel and her husband.
“Tawni has been at this for many years and has a lot of experience,” Farmers’ Market supervisor Laura Avery told the Daily Press when the issue first arose.
Winograd doesn’t see the proposal as the end of all pony rides in Santa Monica.
“Local residents could still ride ponies, for example, at Virginia Park, a large enough venue to allow the ponies to be walked on gentle leads, not tethered to a metal carousel a few feet from a busy restaurant,” she said. “It’s exciting to imagine the possibilities for the Main Street Farmers’ Market, where children with paint brushes in hand could create seascapes and even perform with an open mike.”
Angel said she feels that the proposal is unfairly discriminative against her business. She plans to rally fans of the pony rides and petting zoo at Sunday’s Farmers’ Market and then attend Tuesday’s meeting to express her frustration.
“I have literally devoted my life to creating a relationship between ‘Santa Monica city kids’ and ‘farm animals,'” she said in an e-mail. “They are both just good for your soul! I am blessed and grateful to have the opportunity to combine my loves.”
Angel is considering a lawsuit against Winograd. She says that 80 percent of her business comes from the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market.
“I am so sorry that Marcy Winograd has been able to lie, and exaggerate, to convince so many people that my animals are mistreated all due to some political agenda,” she said.
In 1999, a previous Farmers’ Market pony ride operator was arrested by SMPD after it was discovered her animals were living in squalor, according to the Los Angeles Times archives.
Santa Monica is no stranger to debating the rights of animals. In 2009, council banned the controversial veterinary procedure of clipping the claws of cats.
dave@www.smdp.com
I have wanted to see the end of the pony rides for a long time. They walk on hard concrete in hot sun for hours on end. It sends a message that we can do whatever we want to less powerful creatures just for entertainment. That’s not a message I live by or want to demonstrate.
It’s 2014. The time to end these kinds of displays — where animals are used as equipment to make money — is long overdue. I urge the Council to do away with animal displays once and for all.
Some have commented elsewhere that the “free market” should determine whether the pony rides at the SM Main Street Farmers Market should be perpetuated. Here is a response to that argument I posted on FB:
If we relied solely on the ignorant “wisdom” of the “free market” to determine which enterprises continued and which expired we would probably have experienced many more deaths and injuries from various flim-flam artists, unregulated manufacturers of food, cars, machinery and purveyors of services. The market is simply not very good at providing needed information, and even worse at accounting for fairness, equity and ethics. People went and continue to go to circuses and zoos where animals are and were cooped up, mistreated and obviously unhappy to be on display for momentary pleasure and entertainment of audiences. At zoos the animals would display aberrant behavior not seen in the wild, and would be unable or unwilling to mate. Zoo management would sometimes candidly admit that the harm to the captive animals was the cost they should bear to educate the greater public to preserve endangered and poorly-understood species. We have evolved some since the bad old days of imprisoning beasts who roamed free and wide in 12 x 12 cages, but that evolution was hardly attributable to the obtuse “invisible hand”, and we have a long way to go.
I am so grateful to Marcy for raising my awareness of this issue. I do see that at some point in history it was an advance to rescue these animals from slaughter and bring them to city children deprived of contact with farms and farm animals. However, we now understand animals are better off in more natural surroundings, and it is not sufficient that we want to gratify a young child’s temporary, unformed wants. We need to teach children to respect as well as like animals.
The pony rides do not teach children about compassion for animals; the rides teach about exploitation and objectification of other living beings. We can do better for our children, and for the animals.
We have evolved over the years to the point where we realize that animals should not be compelled to toil in a confined space for our entertainment. It’s time for a change at the market.