In a proclamation signed on Saturday night, the city of Beverly Hills has banned large gatherings including political demonstrations in residential areas between the hours of 9:00 p.m. and 8:00 a.m., with violations punishable as a misdemeanor.
While the proclamation cites the general state of protests that have been ongoing nationwide since the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers on Memorial Day, the new restrictions are in response to an incident on Friday involving a protest group called Occupy BLM. Beginning around 10:00 p.m., the group held a march down Santa Monica Blvd in Beverly Hills but then turned down a residential street, at which point police declared the march an unlawful assembly and began attacking the protesters with tear gas and “sponge-tipped grenades,” according to Los Angeles Magazine.
The ban applies to “any meeting, demonstration, picket line, rally, gathering, or group of ten (10) or more persons, or vehicles, or a combination thereof, having a common purpose, design, or goal.”
The ban also affects all areas of Beverly Hills not considered part of the city’s business district. This includes the city’s “Business Triangle, defined in the proclamation as bordered on the south by Wilshire Boulevard, on the north by the southern border of Beverly Gardens Park, and on the east by Crescent Drive. The district also includes sections of La Cienega, Robertson, South Beverly, Santa Monica Blvd south of Wilshire, and Wilshire east of Crescent and west of Santa Monica.
The proclamation exempts “any assembly that is silent,” as well as law enforcement and emergency personnel, members of the media, and public works workers.