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# Q-Line: Do city politicians do enough to keep locally owned businesses?
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/091603-story/
- Published: 2003-09-16T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T02:55:47.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Community, Pier, #archive-import

The 50-year-old Boathouse restaurant was booted off the Santa Monica Pier last year to make way for Bubba Gump Shrimp. Despite that the Santa Monica City Council and Pier Restoration Corp., which manages the pier, maintains that they prefer locally-owned, independent businesses, the movie-themed chain restaurant will enter the Santa Monica scene next summer.

This week, Q-Line wants to know, “Does the city’s politicians do enough to keep locally-owned business here? What should be done?”

Call (310) 285-8106 with your response before Thursday at 5 p.m. We’ll print them in Friday’s paper. Please limit your comments to a minute or less. It might help to think first about the wording of your response.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 16, 2003.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/091603.pdf?ref=smdp.com)