City Council Meeting: March 11, 2025 Santa Monica, California ORDINANCE NUMBER _________ (CCS)
(City Council Series)
AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SANTA MONICA AMENDING MUNICIPAL CODE SECTION 4.08.095, PROHIBITION AGAINST
CAMPING IN PUBLIC PLACES, TO OMIT CERTAIN COMFORT ITEMS FROM THE
DEFINITION OF CAMP FACILITY
WHEREAS, Santa Monica Municipal Code Section 4.08.095 prohibits camping in prohibited public places; and
WHEREAS, on November 15, 2022, the City Council adopted Ordinance Number 2728 (CCS) (Ordinance 2728), amending Section 4.08.095 in response to a ruling from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Johnson v. City of Grants Pass (Grants Pass), which held that it is “cruel and unusual punishment” in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution to prohibit individuals that are “involuntarily” unhoused from sleeping or using blankets, pillows, sleeping bags, cardboard boxes, and other rudimentary protections against the weather on public property, unless shelter space is available; and
WHEREAS, for consistency with the Ninth Circuit’s decision, Ordinance 2728 amended Section 4.08.095 by: 1) removing sleeping bags and bedrolls from the list of items that could be used to determine whether an individual has erected a camp facility for the purpose of living accommodations in a public place in violation of Section 4.08.095; and 2) adding language clarifying that unhoused individuals are not prohibited from using “sleeping bags, blankets, pillows, and/or bedrolls while sleeping”; and WHEREAS, on June 28, 2024, the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Grants Pass, overturning the Ninth Circuit and holding that regulating camping
on public property does not constitute “cruel and unusual punishment” prohibited by the Eighth Amendment; and
WHEREAS, The Supreme Court held that legislative bodies, rather than courts, are the appropriate decision maker when determining criminal regulations and penalties for camping in public, and the Court acknowledged legislative bodies have broad discretion in this regard, while further acknowledging that a number of Constitutional and common law protections still apply; and
WHEREAS, in response to the Supreme Court’s decision in Grants Pass, on September 24, 2024, the City Council adopted Ordinance Number 2789 (CCS), repealed the changes made by Ordinance 2728 by: 1) adding sleeping bags and bedrolls to the list of items that could be used to determine whether an individual has erected a camp facility for the purpose of living accommodations in a public place in violation of Section 4.08.095; and 2) removing language clarifying that unhoused individuals are not prohibited from using “sleeping bags, blankets, pillows, and/or bedrolls while sleeping”: and WHEREAS, the City Council finds that a ban on sleeping bags and bedrolls to be an inappropriate conflation of comfort items with “encampments,” an ineffective tool to combat the chronic issue of homelessness, and against the values we hold as a community of treating our unhoused neighbors with compassion, dignity, and respect; and
WHEREAS, implementing measures with the intent of making our city inhospitable to fellow human beings in an attempt to force them to seek shelter in Los Angeles does not solve our homelessness crisis, invites Los Angeles and neighboring cities to do the
same to us, and merely perpetuates the shell game the Los Angeles region has played with our unhoused population for decades; and
WHEREAS, our goal as City leaders is to entice unhoused individuals into housing and services for long term stability and ensuring a clean and safe Santa Monica for our residents, visitors, property owners, and businesses; and WHEREAS, the Council now desires to amend Section 4.08.095 to omit from the definition of “camp facility” certain items.
NOW, THEREFORE, THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SANTA MONICA DOES HEREBY ORDAIN AS FOLLOWS:
SECTION 1. Section 4.08.095 of the Santa Monica Municipal Code is hereby amended as follows:
4.08.095 Prohibition against camping in public places.
(a) No person shall camp in a prohibited public place.
(b) For the purpose of this Section:
(1) “Camp” means to erect, maintain, or occupy a camp facility for the purpose of living accommodations.
(2) “Camp facility” means the use of, settling, fixing in place, setting up, locating, or leaving behind in a prohibited public place any or a combination of the following: tents, huts, other temporary physical shelters, cots, beds or hammocks.
(3) “Prohibited public place” means any of the following: the public parks listed in Section 4.55.020, public beaches, the Santa Monica Municipal Pier, public streets, public alleyways, public parking lots,
public passageways, public rights-of-way, publicly-owned landscaped areas or greenbelts, public educational institutions including properties owned by the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District or Santa Monica College, or other government-owned properties located within the City of Santa Monica.
(c) The City Council may, by majority vote, establish one or more specified camping areas. Such camping areas, if any, may be located in prohibited public places, except that such camping areas shall not be located within public parks.
SECTION 2. Any provision of the Santa Monica Municipal Code or appendices thereto inconsistent with the provisions of this Ordinance, to the extent of such inconsistencies and no further, are hereby repealed or modified to that extent necessary to effect the provisions of this Ordinance.
SECTION 3. If any section, subsection, sentence, clause, or phrase of this Ordinance is for any reason held to be invalid or unconstitutional by a decision of any court of competent jurisdiction, such decision shall not affect the validity of the remaining portions of this Ordinance. The City Council hereby declares that it would have passed this Ordinance and each and every section, subsection, sentence, clause, or phrase not declared invalid or unconstitutional without regard to whether any portion of the ordinance would be subsequently declared invalid or unconstitutional.
SECTION 4. The Mayor shall sign and the City Clerk shall attest to the passage of this Ordinance. The City Clerk shall cause the same to be published once in the official
newspaper within 15 days after its adoption. This Ordinance shall become effective 30 days from its adoption.
APPROVED AS TO FORM:
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Douglas Sloan, City Attorney