Santa Monica Clamps Down on Health Buffs

Park ranger has issued hundreds of warnings, but they just keep going and going

Oh, fudge! Despite a city ordinance prohibiting the practice, people in Santa Monica continue to exercise.

For several months, throngs of exercisers have continued to flout the law, descending regularly on medians in a posh part of town that those in-the-know refer to as being located "North of Montana" Street. So concerned are city officials that a park ranger was stationed in the area for a period of seven months, during which hundreds of warnings were issued, informing these Spandex-clad scofflaws that they're violating a city ordinance prohibiting the use of medians for anything other than walking or running.

Hello? There are, like, signs posted in the medians to that effect.

But, hold onto your power bar, cause that isn't the half of it.

Seems that runners like to run up and down some nearby stairs that connect Adelaide Drive and Entrada Drive, which has got some of those same residents peeved too. Indeed, the route is so popular that there were several fitness buffs using the stairs when the Google Maps camera drove by and snapped its street-view shots.

And yet, this tale gets better, and better.

As the Santa Monica Dispatch reports, some residents are so tired of the exercisers that they've asked for the stairs to be closed, only to find that there are two obstacles to that course of action: 1. The stairs are the jurisdiction of the City of Los Angeles, not Santa Monica; and 2. The stairs have been designated a tsunami escape route.

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A tsunami escape route!

Want more? OK.

Reports from the City of Santa Monica community meeting held Thursday on the matter suggest that residents have been exposed to more than just formidable biceps and formfitting outfits, but a bit of foreplay and even … gasp ... "fornication." Well, at least that's what one resident said in a sound bite played by KNX 1070 NEWSRADIO. The resident claimed to have seen that going on in the middle of the street.

Middle of the street!

That's Adelaide Drive and Fourth Street. Here's a map. I'll be out of the office for the remainder of the day.

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