Obstructions On Sept. 16, more than 150 people attended the city council meeting the downtown closure. Ventura is one of only a handful of cities in the state with a car-free downtown. Some downtown property owners oppose the closure and have sued the city to stop it. The lawsuit is in appeal. The cars aren't coming back to Main Street in downtown Ventura.
The Ventura City Council voted on Sept. 16 to keep five blocks of Main Street and one block of California Street closed to vehicles, as they have been since 2020. The vote was greeted with applause and came after two hours of public testimony in which 74 city residents and business owners spoke in favor of the closure, and only three spoke against it. More than 150 people attended the meeting, nearly all of them in support of the street closure.