GLOOM AND DOOM COMES ALONG WITH AIRPORT This past week, Q-line asked: Is the Santa Monica Airport a valuable commodity for the city of Santa Monica or just a nuisance and safety hazard? Here are your responses: “THE AIRPORT IS LIKE AN ILLEGAL DRUG in that it seems to be good for Santa Monica, but it is doing great harm to her and creating a great liability by, no doubt about it, affecting the health of its neighbors. It’s become a tremendous nuisance and safety risk to so many that are impacted by the noise, odors of idling jets and so much more. Santa Monica Airport is becoming SMX and worse.”
“REGARDING THE SANTA MONICA Airport, I suppose it’s a commodity and value for some people — local citizens that have prop planes — and should not be used for jets. They make way too much noise and there is a lot of danger involved. The fumes are obnoxious, but the main thing is the noise, much too noisy.”
“THE SIGHTS, SOUNDS AND SMELLS around Santa Monica Airport are pretty ghastly and make life for the citizens in the surrounding area a nightmare. Then again, so are the sights, sounds, and smells around a lot of Santa Monica, especially the downtown area and beach and parks due to the escalating number of lowlifes and bums pulling into Santa Monica for the handouts and the permissive atmosphere.”
“I LIVE IN VENICE, ON THE OTHER SIDE of the jet takeoff by the beach. Santa Monica Airport is absolutely a nuisance and a safety hazard.”
“I’M AN LA RESIDENT EAST OF THE airport and it’s a disaster. There’s gonna be a major accident one day and we’re all gonna look back and say, ‘Why did we let this happen?’ Santa Monica Airport needs to be turned into a golf course.”
“THE SANTA MONICA AIRPORT IS BOTH a valuable commodity for the city of Santa Monica and a nuisance and safety hazard, and that’s a shame. With better management, it could just be a valuable commodity. The sheer number of jets that are allowed to land there and the size of the jets being allowed to land there have transformed it into a maddening disaster just waiting to happen. The pollution that’s going on now isn’t waiting, it’s just happening.”
“A SI M PLE RESPONSE TO YOU R question — they knew there was an airport there before they bought their house.”
“PART ONE: YES, THE SANTA MONICA Airport is a valuable commodity, but only for a privileged few and they don’t live in the neighborhood surrounding the airport. It is probably too noisy and polluted for them. Part two: No, the airport is not just a nuisance, Santa Monica Airport is a clear and present danger to the health and safety of all the people living, working and going to schools in the area. All are forced to breathe the toxic jet emissions and to endure the noise of jets screaming overhead and, no doubt, some will be unwilling participants in the inevitable tragedy invited by the FAA’s insistence on almost non-existent safety run-off areas on runways — never built for the new, fast jets. That is not a nuisance, it is more like criminal negligence.”
“THE SANTA MONICA AIRPORT IS A very valuable commodity for the city of Santa Monica and the entire west side of LA, because it could be the only outside communication and transportation for the whole Westside in the event of a disastrous earthquake or other calamity that might strike. It is a nuisance for the people that live in the immediate vicinity of the takeoff area around Bundy and National, but they bought their properties long after the airport was open in 1919.”
“YEARS AGO, I USED TO THINK OF the Santa Monica Airport as kind of a quaint throwback to the old historic days of the beginnings of air travel, but things have really changed over the past dozen years. It has become this noisy, polluting place, rather than a few putt-putts taking off from the airport, being somewhat cute. This is a serious health hazard and noise hazard. It is also not using the enormous area that we have, that the airport encompasses in a good way. We could use that space in Santa Monica in a much better way.”
“I LIVE NEAR PICO AND ROBERTSON, not really in Santa Monica, and am really upset. I’ve lived there for over 30 years and the jets coming over my neighborhood, coming into Santa Monica Airport are just awful, almost a reason for me to move. I’m five or six miles away. I can’t believe they allow that many jets to fly over. They’re flying over Beverly Hills. I can’t believe that it’s tolerated to accommodate the millionaires. I’m not happy.”
“I THINK IT SHOULD REMAIN OPEN, BUT with three things. The city should install 1,000-foot runway safety areas as soon as possible. Two, it should eliminate the jets. No. 3, it should require the prop planes to use unleaded fuel.”
“SANTA MONICA AIRPORT IS SANTA Monica’s dirty little secret. This environmental Mecca has a canal in its midst. The city keeps letting this happen. Santa Monica Airport needs to be eliminated.”
“THE SANTA MONICA AIRPORT IS A noisy, polluting nuisance and a definite safety hazard. We’d be well to do without it.”
“AS GOES SANTA MONICA, SO GOES the airport. Big money developers are ruining Santa Monica, and the big money is ruining the airport. The airport can stay, but as it was before the jets and big planes took over.”
“I WOULD LIKE TO SEE THE AIRPORT closed, or if not closed, I would like to see the number of aircraft rolled back significantly, so that we accommodate a few small planes and no jet aircraft.”
“THE WAY THE AIRPORT IS TODAY, it is mostly a nuisance and a safety hazard. If it were limited to small, private planes and jets were eliminated, it would still be a noisy, but a far more welcome neighbor.”
“I NEVER CALL IN TO RESPOND TO THESE kinds of survey questions, but I couldn’t let my voice not weigh in on the issue of Santa Monica Airport. I side on the opinion of it being a nuisance and a safety hazard. Living just off Ocean Boulevard, we hear the jets early — the moment the clock strikes 7 a.m. until way after 10 at night. Even though they can’t take off after that time period, they can land there, so the issue surrounding this and our health in Sunset Park is something that I hope our elected officials take very seriously.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 7, 2007. Read the original PDF.