Community Corner
VIDEO: Guard Boots Clergymen From Gardens On El Paseo Sidewalk
The priest and pastor were ushering in the Lenten season by putting ashes in the sign of the cross on foreheads of willing passerby on a public sidewalk.
A Palm Desert Episcopalian priest and Lutheran pastor administered ashes to about 200 people Wednesday along El Paseo on the first day of the Lenten season, but not without some trouble.
The Rev. Lane Hensley of and Pastor Derek Fossey of were on the sidewalk area just outside the when a guard asked them to leave about 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, saying the area was private property.
“Where does the property end?” Hensley asked.
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“The property ends at the stoplight to the stoplight down there,’’ the guard said, pointing from San Pablo Avenue to Larkspur Lane.
The men wrapped up the event after being asked to leave, but not before a dozen more people asked for the ritual.
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Ashes are traditionally put on the foreheads of parishioners as part of Ash Wednesday, which ushers in the first day of Lent, the 40-day preparation in protestant and Catholic churches for Easter Sunday, April 24.
“I asked if it was OK to do this in the courtyard area (on Monday),’’ Hensley said, adding that the Gardens on El Paseo did not give him permission inside the upscale shopping area. He believed that the sidewalk was open for the public.
Sidewalks are not private property in Palm Desert, according to Ruth Ann Moore, the city's director of economic development.
"Without reviewing the plans, typically from the curb back 10 to 12 feet is public right of way,'' Moore said.
After the priest and pastor left, a guard who only identified himself as a supervisor said he did not have a comment on why the church leaders were barred from the sidewalk along the Gardens.
“See these bricks right here. Does that look like the sidewalk across the street?” he said.
Sara OFlynn, marketing director for the Gardens on El Paseo, said she had no comment.
Hensley said that he brought the tradition to the desert for the first time this year from his parish in Chicago.
Fossey said he hopes to team up again with Hensley next year.
“Many of the employees of the stores came out to receive ashes,’’ Fossey said. The pastor said people, even non-Christians, seemed to enjoy it.
“People would pull up and ask if I could give them ashes in the car,’’ Fossey said, adding he happily obliged.
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