New Law May Trip Up Carmel Walking Tour

There’s a new gang of villains in the town once ruled by Clint Eastwood.

They’re harmless alone. But, banded together, they clog the town’s pine-shaded sidewalks. They traipse through elegant courtyards, leer over fences into manicured backyards. They get nosy.

They’re tourists - the kind who pay to explore the town in group walking tours.

“It’s over,” said Mayor Ken White who led a recent City Council decision to outlaw organized, profit-driven strolls. A final vote is expected this month.

“We’d rather have a quiet town, and there’s a quiet way to discover Carmel - on your own,” said White, claiming most of the town’s 4,700 residents find guided walks unnecessary and intrusive.

The ban isn’t the first or most unusual regulation in the seaside town famed for its quaint charm, ocean views and Eastwood, the tough-guy actor who once served as mayor.

For years, it’s been a town where you can’t buy a beer and listen to a band at the same time, where you won’t find a neon light or a street address or anyone wearing high-heel shoes without the required permit. White, among others, once sought to ban ice cream cones for fear of messy sidewalks.

“There are principles at stake here, and many of us are aware of the need to stay true to them,” White said.

Some cry overkill, including Councilman Marshall Hydorn, who called the walking ban “almost un-American.

Gale Wrausmann is perhaps the most livid. Her guided “Carmel Walks” is the only licensed walking tour in town, and the target of the city’s recent action.

“They’ve gone way overboard,” she said following a recent stroll with a dozen $15-a-head tourists in tow.

“You talk to the mayor and every time he gives a different reason. He’s trying to say it’s based on principle. What it really is is backroom politics - a small group of people who want to keep Carmel available only to a select few. That’s wrong.”

Wrausmann, a photographer by trade, moved to Carmel a couple years ago with a carefully researched walking tour in mind. She spent six months studying the town’s history, never intending to become yet another quirky chapter in it.

Despite the council’s action, she has no plans to stop walking and hopes the American Civil Liberties Union can help battle what she feels is an illicit trampling of her free-speech rights.

Even in a town used to odd disputes, the current one, along with another fledgling plan to ban tourist-luring T-shirts shops, seem to have divided residents more than ever.

Many blame sheer numbers: In recent years, the town’s population has swelled nearly fourfold during summertime, when 20,000 tourists pour in each day. Their annual spending accounts for more than half of the city’s $9 million budget.

That makes it increasingly difficult for city leaders to abide by a 1929 credo, etched in City Hall, which declares “business and commerce … (are) subordinated to (Carmel’s) residential character.”

Dick Harden, whose Carmel Pipe Shop opened in the 1950s, says he’s heard the debate many times before, and finds the current version disturbing.

“I have a deep passion for Carmel, but frankly I think we’re losing it,” Harden said as tourists crammed in to his tiny shop. “When someone comes to town, you’d better treat them as your guest. You treat them very, very nice. You remember that each one has a different story to tell.”

As for the current batch of city leaders, he said, “I think we have some real novices at work here.”

Clayton Anderson, a 74-year-old former planning commissioner and Carmel “Citizen of the Year,” disagreed.

“This town has a carrying capacity,” he said. “So, to the quality tourists, the ones who spend a night or two, we say, ‘OK.’ What we object to are the day-trippers, the kind who come into town just to poke around and buy a T-shirt.”