Inside Santa Monicas boozy street drinking plan to save struggling outdoor mall

Finally some good news about the Third Street Promenade area of Santa Monica, which has seen rampant closures in recent months and years.Mayor Caroline Torosis told the California Post the Entertainment Zone model that allows for open alcohol consumption, adopted in the summer of 2025, is working.“We’re testing out what works and what doesn’t and we’ve had some really successful activations,” Torosis said.“We’ve seen no increase in any sort of elicit activity.

And in fact last year we actually saw a decrease in Part 1 crimes by 12.5 percent.” (Part 1 crimes are a set of serious offenses used by the FBI’s crime reporting unit that include assault and burglary.)In 2024, as California struggled to recover from the pandemic, Senator Scott Wiener authored SB 969 to allow cities to establish entertainment zones where adults could consume alcohol purchased from bars and restaurants on the street.The bill was signed by Governor Gavin Newsom in September of 2024 and faster than you can say “chug,” San Francisco’s Front Street hosted an Oktoberfest that attracted 2,000 people, compared to a few hundred in previous iterations with a fenced-off drinking patio.“It just makes it feel more warm and welcoming and not something you have to purchase your way into,” Melissa Buckminster, Director of Marketing and Communications for the Downtown San Francisco Partnership, said.“It’s great to see it has a very tangible impact for our small businesses.

They can make as much in one night as they do in one week.”Six months later, Santa Monica implemented California’s first longterm legal open container rule on Fridays through Sundays from 11 am to 10 pm.“We were watching Senator Wiener put this together,” Torosis said.“We were watching what was happening in San Francisco.

We talked with our public officials and our business community to figure out what kind of framework would work for Santa Monica.What is something that puts Santa Monica on the ...