Ask anyone on Main Street why they can carry a drink from Library Alehouse past The Victorian during a permitted event, and most people will say some version of "Santa Monica legalized drinking in the street." That's close, but it skips the part that actually matters if you live here: the city didn't flip one switch. It ran a controlled trial on one street for a year, checked the numbers, and only then let the idea spread, block by block, event by event. Main Street got its turn in July. Montana Avenue is still catching up, and gets its first real activation this Saturday, October 3.
The Promenade was the test case
The whole thing traces back to a 2024 state law, Senate Bill 969, which let California cities designate zones where people can carry alcohol bought from a licensed bar or restaurant and drink it on the sidewalk during a permitted event. Santa Monica moved first in Southern California, and the city council approved an emergency ordinance in May 2025 that opened the zone along the Third Street Promenade the following month.
That gave the city almost a year of real data before it touched any other street. A six-month performance review found no increase in crime tied to the zone, and it helped double attendance at events like Oktoberfest. Mayor Caroline Torosis put a number on the bigger trend when she told reporters in April 2026 that citywide Part 1 crimes, the FBI's category for serious offenses like assault and burglary, had fallen 12.5 percent year over year. "We're testing out what works and what doesn't and we've had some really successful activations," she said.
That's the evidence the council leaned on in March 2026 when it voted to expand the entertainment zone framework beyond the Promenade to the Santa Monica Pier, Main Street, and Montana Avenue. But a council vote to expand a framework and an actual, walkable zone are two different things. Approving the idea in March didn't mean any of those streets could pour a drink onto the sidewalk the next weekend.
Main Street's version didn't open until State of the City
Main Street's zone became real on July 23, 2026, when the city used its annual State of the City event to activate it for the first time. For that one afternoon, Main Street closed to cars from noon to 10 p.m. between Hollister Avenue and Ocean Park Boulevard, and the city built the whole occasion around the corridor, holding Mayor Torosis's address and a reading by Santa Monica Poet Laureate Jay Baldwin right outside the newly reopened Ocean Park Branch Library.
The mechanics of the Main Street zone are specific, not sweeping. Adults 21 and older can buy a drink from a participating business and carry it on the sidewalks between Strand Avenue and Pier Avenue, plus the closed stretch between Hollister and Ocean Park, but only with a wristband from one of the businesses pouring, and never with alcohol brought from somewhere else. The list of businesses that signed on for that first activation reads like a cross-section of what Main Street actually is right now:
- Ashland Hill
- Circle Bar
- Edgemar
- Jameson's Pub
- JuneShine
- La Vecchia Cucina
- Library Alehouse
- Lula Cocina Mexicana
- Manchego
- Tavern on Main
- The Galley
- The Victorian
That's a dive bar, an Irish pub, a kombucha taproom, a Spanish tapas spot, and a Mexican restaurant all agreeing to operate under the same wristband system on the same afternoon. The zone only runs during specific permitted events, not every Friday night, so the practical question for anyone on Main Street isn't "can I drink outside" but "is there an event on today."
Circle Bar is the anchor tenant of that list
One name on that list carries more local weight than the others. Circle Bar, the oval-bar dive at 2926 Main Street that's been part of Santa Monica nightlife since 1949, went dark in August 2023 and stayed closed until May 22, 2026, when Mark and Addie Van Gessel reopened it. The Van Gessels already run Hinano Cafe in Venice and Tavern on Main just down the block, which means the same family group now holds three of the businesses on the entertainment zone list.
The reopening kept the 1949 floor plan and the exterior signage intact, but rebuilt the room around a new elevated DJ booth called "The Halo," an upgraded speaker system, and a daily Power Hour from 6 to 7 p.m. with discounted wine and cocktails. "Circle Bar isn't just a bar," Van Gessel told the Santa Monica Daily Press. "It's part of Santa Monica's cultural DNA. Everyone has a Circle Bar story." Whether or not that's true for you, the bar's return timed almost exactly with the entertainment zone conversation, and its inclusion on the July activation list means the same room that's been a fixture for three-quarters of a century is now also one of the dozen places you can walk out of with a legal drink in hand during a designated event.
Montana Avenue hasn't caught up yet
Montana Avenue is a different story. The city's own entertainment zone page still lists Montana Avenue, between 7th and 17th streets, as "coming soon," meaning there's no standing zone there the way there now is on Main Street and the Promenade. That changes, at least for one day, on Saturday, October 3, when the Montana Avenue Art Walk returns as the corridor's first entertainment zone activation. Organizers with Venice Blvd Productions, the team behind the long-running Venice Fest in Mar Vista, are adding a live music stage and a classic car showcase to the Art Walk this year, and participating restaurants will be able to sell drinks to go along the closed corridor for the day.
The delay isn't an oversight. When the council debated expanding the framework to Montana Avenue this spring, the North of Montana Association pushed back, asking the city to set a buffer zone around Roosevelt Elementary School before any standing Montana Avenue zone goes live, since the ordinance as written would allow open containers as early as 8 a.m., seven days a week. That question hasn't been resolved, which is why Montana Avenue's zone still shows as pending rather than active, even though Main Street's went live months ago.
So if you're on Main Street tonight and you see a wristband exchange outside The Victorian or Library Alehouse, that's a program with almost a year of Promenade data behind it and a specific business list vouching for it. If you're on Montana Avenue this weekend and you see the same thing at the Art Walk, that's the corridor's first run at something Main Street has already had months to work out.
This Saturday, October 3, Montana Avenue closes to vehicle traffic for the Art Walk, with live music, a classic car showcase, and for the first time, participating restaurants selling drinks to go along the closed corridor. It's the same policy Main Street has been operating under since July, just arriving on a different street on a different timeline.
If you want a closer read on how a specific stretch of Santa Monica is actually changing, block by block, The Dutchover Team tracks these shifts the way anyone who works this coastline every day has to.
