Council to Repeal Limits on Park Use : Ordinance: The action is part of the settlement in a suit brought by ACLU over a controversial law aimed at ending outdoor feeding programs for the homeless.

SANTA MONICA — The Santa Monica City Council is throwing in the towel on a park reservation law that would have, in effect, ended homeless feeding programs in public parks.

As part of a settlement with the American Civil Liberties Union, the law will be repealed, officials said. The city has also agreed to pay the ACLU $7,500 in legal fees, in addition to the $20,000 spent on its own lawyers.

The ACLU had challenged the law almost as soon as the City Council approved it in January, contending that by limiting the number of times a large group could reserve use of the parks each month, the city was infringing on free speech rights guaranteed by the Constitution.

In a preliminary but strongly worded ruling, a federal judge agreed with the ACLU and blocked the city from enforcing the law until a trial could be held, a trial Santa Monica seemed destined to lose.

Efforts to rewrite the law to make it acceptable to both sides were unsuccessful.

“We’re just trying to cut our losses,” City Councilwoman Asha Greenberg said. “It was pretty clear they were not going to compromise as far as this particular ordinance went. There was no room for negotiation.”

ACLU attorney Carol Sobel replied that the Santa Monica ordinance was too far out of legal bounds for a quick fix.

“The ACLU set out the law to the court and a U.S. district judge agreed that the city was so far off base with this law there was no way it could be found constitutional,” Sobel said.

The challenge to the law was filed on behalf of activists Jerry Rubin and Len Doucette.

Greenberg and others stressed that the council has by no means retreated from addressing problems in the parks, including their overuse by some groups to the exclusion of the general public.

“The council’s going to go back to the drawing board,” said Christi Hogin, one of the private attorneys who defended the city. “The council just became willing to walk away from that ordinance, not from the problem.”

Councilman Robert T. Holbrook also vowed to press forward. “We’ll be right back with a new ordinance until we achieve our goal: to get group use of the park under control,” he said.

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Even without the First Amendment issue, the plan to regulate parks was controversial. It was strongly opposed by some homeless advocates who wanted to continue outdoor feeding programs, contrary to a city policy adopted last year.

In accordance with the recommendations of the city’s Task Force on Homelessness, the council had earlier endorsed, and partially funded, three smaller indoor meals programs intended to replace large outdoor gatherings.

The indoor meal programs were endorsed by those who work with the homeless as a way to offer social services in addition to food. But some people resisted the policy, believing they had the right to feed the homeless where they could be found--in the parks.

His refusal to write the park reservation law precipitated the firing in September, 1992, of longtime City Atty. Robert M. Myers, who told the council members that they were wrong legally and morally.

Bypassing the opportunity to gloat at having his judgment upheld, Myers said this week: “The question was justice for the homeless. . . . Hopefully, the city will learn the lesson and stop wasting taxpayers dollars on legal fees to defend an ill-conceived idea.”

The city is also being sued over another law Myers opposed--a law banning the use of parks as living accommodations.