Monocled Alchemist

A first-hand eye-witness report on teenagers and the riots in L.A.

Article published in Teen Datebook, Spring 1967

Chad & Jeremy And The Sunset Strip Riots | In November of last year, newspapers across the country carried stories about protest rallies and riots on Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. But few of them gave the facts behind it all. We were there when all the fuss was going on and feel that a lot hasn’t been said in an attempt to understand the problem.

For some time now, the City of Los Angeles has been trying to reenforce a 1939 Curfew Law which states that anyone 18-years-old or under has to be off the streets by 10:00 pm. The major reason is that club owners were complaining that the big money-spending adults were staying away from the Strip because of the kids. This had been causing unrest among the kids.

In addition, one teenage club was forced to close down and several others were threatened with closure in order to make way for high-rise buildings which will eventually line the Strip.

It was in this atmosphere that the protest rallies got started. On the part of the kids it adds up to one thing: the Strip is to be cleared of discos and clubs—and of them! They are once more being displaced.

Chad & Jeremy And The Sunset Strip Riots

We’re dealing with two different problems: there’s the Strip and there’s the Curfew Law, which has been terribly useless and hasn’t been doing what it’s supposed to have been doing for a very long time. To the kids, reenforcing the law means nowhere to go and nothing to do. Their Place was being taken from them.

On the other hand, the fact is that many kids these days—and we know parents don’t like to believe this, but it’s true—have forged I.D. cards and are a lot hipper than most adults would like to believe. They know about drugs, they know about a lot of things—whether they reject certain activities or become part of them is up to them.

And, physically, they’re quite capable of staying up a lot later than 10:00 pm. Why should a 17-year-old who is perfectly mature in a physical sense get off the streets at 10:00 pm? Besides, the teens on the Strip just stand around and talk —they hardly ever cause any trouble.

Troublemaker

There’s where the real problem is. People are afraid to see teenagers just standing around doing nothing—this is especially true if they have long hair. Now, it’s not the long hair itself adults are afraid of, but the fact that it’s different, it’s not what they’re used to seeing. So, they seem to come to the conclusion that if someone is not afraid to be different and will let his hair grow long, he’ll automatically be a troublemaker.

In Los Angeles, they haven’t a clue about how to handle the situation. To some extent, people have faced up to the problem and have made places where teenagers can go like the clubs where drinking is not allowed and where they can dance.

Lots of teenagers hang around the Strip, mostly because there’s nowhere else to go. When you’re a teenager, you don’t really own anything. You can’t drive a car, you haven’t got a house, you haven’t got anything that particularly belongs to you, so, naturally, you go where you can meet friends and sit or stand and talk.

Chad & Jeremy And The Sunset Strip Riots

Now we come to the fact that the police in L.A. have got fairly out of hand. Before the protest rally, a friend of ours, who is 21, while sitting in a club was hauled out onto the pavement by two steel-helmeted gentlemen. After an embarrassing scene, he was finally able to convince them that he was 21 and was allowed back in. This sort of harassment is very common on the Strip.

To get back to the actual protest marches, on the first night of the rally there was some trouble, though grossly over-reported. But, there’ll always be trouble-makers and they were dealt with, which is fine.

On the second night, once again the Strip was swarming with police. This time, however, it was the innocents being harassed by the police. To be sure those who could be picked up on some wrong-doing stayed away. The kids were just standing around on the sidewalk, they were not interfering with traffic or starting up in any way.

We were there ourselves and saw, waiting in the background, the police with their white helmets and their dogs and their clubs and their jack boots. It was sickening to see such a gross mishandling of a problem.

The police have made martyrs of the kids. Surely there are some real problems to be dealt with on the Strip—like the dope scene. But the best way to handle that is to try and bust the drug scene. Instead, they’re bugging the innocent kids.

If parents want their child home by 10:00 pm, that’s fine. It’s their job to see that it’s done. Of course, so many parents have no idea what their child is doing, which most often is not very much.

Chad & Jeremy And The Sunset Strip Riots

The Curfew Law should be re-examined! And we certainly don’t think anything can be solved with clubs and dogs.

If the police are using the roughing-up method with the teenagers now, what’s going to happen 20 years from now? We’re only at the beginning of the great population explosion. Within just one year, the teenage population will be even greater than it is now.

Are we going to have guns and dogs and tear gas just to keep us in our own backyards, because they want to keep the streets clear? And, if what’s been going on in L.A. is allowed to continue, that’s exactly what will be going on in less than 20 years.

However, to call it police brutality is not the right phrase. When a policeman grabs you and hauls you out, he’s not necessarily being brutal but he’s certainly being violent, arrogant and disrespectful. And this is a rotten situation. We’re paying their salaries!

The English cops, who’ve always been a myth, are cops like anybody else, but at least there is a veneer of knowledge that they are a service to the public and are there to protect the people and keep the peace.

Chad & Jeremy And The Sunset Strip Riots

To protect the people—that’s where it is! Nobody’s being protected, particularly if you look a little different than the average red neck norm. And, because the average cop thinks you’re different, he treats you differently.

Words cannot describe the feeling you get of having your liberties infringed upon. You’re fenced in, you can’t do this, you can’t do that. You’re constantly having to produce a badge, a card or a permit. It almost appears to be an insidious adult plot to sweep the kids under the carpet!

We feel a big alarm should be sounded because this is a sad case of extremism taking the place of justice!