In 1936, there were no video games to keep kids inside. Most homes did not have televisions.
Amid concerns that children playing in the streets were hit by cars, Los Angeles made it a misdemeanor to play baseball, basketball, soccer or any other ball game on a street or sidewalk.
Nearly a century later, with children spending half as much time outdoors as their parents, Councilman Bob Blumenfield wants to remove this obscure law from the books.
Blumenfield, author of a motion to initiate the process, called the law, along with its punishments of a $1,000 fine and up to six months in jail, “extraordinarily foolish.”
It is a crime for a parent to play ball on the sidewalk with a child in front of their home, said Blumenfield, who represents the southwest San Fernando Valley. A group of kids also can't kick a soccer ball on a quiet residential street without breaking the law.
The law also prohibits throwing “rocks, shot, bullets, arrows or any other missile, into, upon, through, along or upon any street or sidewalk or in any public park.” Prohibits playing ball games in public parks, except on designated courts or fields.
“Let's let the kids play,” said Olsen Ebright, a member of the Los Feliz Neighborhood Council. “Why in God's name would the city try to prevent football from being played or a football thrown?”
The benefits of exercising on public lands, when done safely and under supervision, outweigh the risks of injury or property damage, such as a baseball going through a neighbor's window, Ebright said.
Blumenfield's motion, introduced last August, was unanimously supported by the City Council in a January vote, in which only Blumenfield was absent, as well as by the Los Feliz Neighborhood Council. For this to move forward, the city attorney's office needs to draft language codifying the change.
Blumenfield's staff unearthed the 1936 law while researching public rights-of-way, said Kristine Cajulis, the council member's communications deputy. Cajulis said he is not aware of anyone who has been disciplined under the law.
One law enforcement case occurred in 2006, when a former city council member reported her Sherman Oaks neighbors for having basketball hoops near their sidewalks, according to the Los Angeles Daily News.
In addition to the anti-ball game ordinance, the neighbors were accused of violating an ordinance prohibiting structures on sidewalks or grass strips next to sidewalks.
Nate Brogin had installed a basketball hoop that attracted neighborhood kids to play and helped his son, then 18, lose 30 pounds.
Brogin, who said at the time that the law was akin to fascism, fought the city, unsuccessfully. He said he never paid his fine (he doesn't remember how much it was), but he finally lowered the ring.
“It's a long time to allow something so backwards to go forward,” Brogin, now 77, said of the law.
In newspaper articles from the 1930s, local officials warned parents to keep their children from playing in the streets to avoid being hit by cars.
Children should be allowed to play in yards or empty spaces, but they should not be allowed “to run the risk of injury by playing in the path of moving vehicles,” said George Hjelte, then superintendent of Los Angeles playgrounds, in a February 3, 1936, Daily Breeze article.
In today's Los Angeles, traffic safety groups Streets For All and Streets Are For Everyone see Blumenfield's proposal as a positive step. Safety starts with drivers paying attention to people on the streets, whether they are biking, walking or playing, they said.
Some drivers in Los Angeles believe the road belongs to them, said Michael Schneider, founder and CEO of Streets For All.
“Changing that requires much more than repealing a law,” he said.
Children still play in the streets of Brogin's Sherman Oaks neighborhood. He said fewer than 10 cars pass by in a typical hour, and drivers stop to let children stop their games and get out of the way, just as he did when he was a child.
“It's a great social exercise,” Brogin said. “I don't see anything negative about it.”
