One week after she imposed an overnight curfew on Downtown Los Angeles, Mayor Karen Bass has lifted that curfew, citing its effectiveness in preventing and suppressing crime in the wake of protests that broke out due to ongoing ICE activity in the city.
Originally effective from 8pm to 6am—and reduced only yesterday to 10pm to 6am—the curfew covered less than eight square miles of the city. The affected zone stretched from the 110 and 10 Freeways to the point where the 5 and 110 Freeways merge and included the Downtown neighborhoods of Chinatown, the Arts District, Skid Row and the Fashion District, where the ICE raids began Friday, June 6.
From the beginning, the mayor clarified that the curfew was not in place to discourage peaceful protests over the recent immigration raids in Los Angeles. Rather, it was aimed at “bad actors who do not care about the immigrant community”—a relatively small faction that was resorting to violence, vandalism and looting.
The recent happenings in Los Angeles have greatly affected Downtown restaurants and small businesses, from the curfew limiting their hours and therefore their customers to ICE raids threatening their very workforce. There were some exceptions, though: Last Thursday, the Music Center’s venues were given an exemption for L.A. Opera and Center Theatre Group performances, and Downtown diners were still allowed to visit restaurants as long as they entered before 8pm. And in the Arts District, Bavel and Bestia kept their regular hours, hinting that the LAPD didn’t care what time patrons visited.
While all restrictions are lifted for now, the mayor said that she is prepared to reissue the curfew if the need arises again “as we continue quickly adapting to chaos coming from Washington.” In the meantime, the original curfew served as an effective tool in deescalating tensions Downtown, preventing crime and maintaining public safety. “My priority will continue to be ensuring safety, stability and support in the Downtown neighborhoods,” said Bass.
Overall, the majority of protests Los Angeles saw over the last week were nonviolent and largely a show of solidarity with the immigrant community—including on Saturday, when according to the mayor’s office “more than 30,000 people peacefully demonstrated in Downtown L.A. to voice their calls to stop the reckless raids and raise awareness about the anti-democratic policies coming out of Washington.”
Meanwhile, the immigration raids are continuing, and ICE is expected to be in Los Angeles for at least 30 days amid Trump’s calls for “the single largest mass deportation program in history.”