Santa Clara officials have unveiled a preliminary map that creates a broad public safety perimeter around Levi’s Stadium for Super Bowl LX and the FIFA World Cup by restricting certain activities leading up to and during the major sporting events next year.
The map is still a work in progress as the City Council deemed it too broad and wants it more narrowly focused.
The special event zone, which is required by the NFL as part of Santa Clara’s hosting agreement, mirrors the map set up by the the city when it last hosted the Super Bowl in 2016. Also known as a “clean zone,” boundaries aim to ensure first responders can easily access the area, manage traffic congestion and keep sidewalks clear of unpermitted signage and street vendors.
“While we regularly hold concerts and sporting events at the stadium, Super Bowl and FIFA are events on a completely different playing field,” Assistant City Manager Elizabeth Klotz told the council. “This ordinance will help the city respond to the increasing scale and complexity of major events by establishing consistent and predictable public safety standards across all of event organizers and activities.”
The map presented at Tuesday’s meeting covered much of Santa Clara’s north side, bounded by State Route 237 to the north, Calabazas Creek to the west, Montague Expressway to the south and the Guadalupe River to the east. The zone’s restrictions would be in effect for Super Bowl from 8 a.m. on Feb. 1 to 10 p.m. on Feb. 10, and for the FIFA World Cup from 8 a.m. on June 12 to midnight on July 1.
But given some of the restrictions, a majority of the council felt that the map stretched too far beyond the immediate shadows of Levi’s Stadium.
When the zone is in effect, no food or merchandise trucks or carts would be allowed including those that normally have a permit to operate in the area. All temporary structures like tents, canopies and inflatables would be prohibited unless they receive city approval, and any free product sampling or giveaway would be banned. Unpermitted commercial advertising including banners, signs and LED light displays would also not be allowed.
The map encompasses Mission College and residential areas, which prompted concerns from the council about how it could impact college students holding non-Super Bowl or World Cup related events or residents who might be hosting a children’s birthday party with an inflatable bounce house.
“I understand rampant vendors, carts, there really can be impacts to traffic, to safety I agree with the unsafe food and all of that,” Vice Mayor Kelly Cox said. “But this advertising thing and people not being allowed to put out specials or put tents in their yards it becomes pretty restrictive in the name of public safety.”
Police Chief Cory Morgan also appeared to agree that the zone was overly broad, informing the council that the law enforcement doesn’t need that large of an area “in terms of the need of public safety access on some of these residential streets.”
While the zone’s perimeter is the same as a decade ago, Mayor Lisa Gillmor said that the city should have learned from Super Bowl 50 and not to repeat the same mistakes.
“We have been harping on this for the last couple of years,” she said. “We want our small businesses to benefit, to make money, to be successful during these events, but we’re telling them you can’t offer anything, you can’t send flyers you can’t put advertisements in the street in front of your place.”
Responding to criticism about the limits on advertising and signage, Klotz said that if they didn’t have any restrictions in place, everyone could come and put up signs and the city would have no mechanism to force people to take them down.
“This is a way to help deter that activity so we can help keep our sidewalks and our public right-of-ways clear,” she said.
Councilmember Kevin Park was the sole voice on the council who didn’t want to reduce the size of the zone, although he said he was in favor of “tightening up” some of the restrictions.
“It will simply move the people who are doing the things we are trying to prevent near the stadium area, it will simply move them to other areas, other cities, other shopping plazas where people congregate, other places where people are going to be when they’re not at the events themselves,” he said.
City officials are expected to come back with the next iteration of the map at a meeting in December.