The ever-optimistic Daily Press columnist Todd Flora waxed enthusiastically about the good things in Santa Monica in Tuesday’s paper. He touted the virtues and charms of the Third Street Promenade and Main Street, and gushed about the boutiques and coffee houses on Montana Avenue.
“Enough,” I thought. “My sweet tooth is aching.”
While it’s OK to be a cheerleader for the ol’ home town, we need to get real. These streets have some unique stores, restaurants and watering holes, but they also have some serious negatives — traffic, lack of parking and vagrancy.
Before I bring my “shopping dollar back to Santa Monica through patronage of these gems,” some changes must be made.
City Hall has spent millions of dollars in the last decade to narrow traffic lanes, widen sidewalks, construct decorative islands down the center of major thoroughfares, build roundabouts and speed bumps, install uncoordinated traffic lights and strangle traffic. Neilson Way, Main Street and 4th Street are “Gridlock Gulch” thanks to politicians and city planners.
The traffic calmers on City Council, especially Mayor Richard “Speed Bumps” Bloom and Kevin “I Love Crosswalks” McKeown have driven (no pun intended) many of us to shop, dine, work and play outside Santa Monica, where there is less stress and inconvenience.
Between traffic and antiquated, smelly parking garages, visiting the Third Street Promenade has become a very unpleasant experience. Inadequate and restricted resident-only street parking there and around Main Street make it difficult, if not impossible, to park, providing yet another good reason to stay away.
Then there’s the vagrants, aggressive panhandlers, anti-social street punks, the mentally ill and all those who babble and scream and give these streets that special edginess some of our community leaders seem to think is stylish and exciting.
I can speak with experience when I say people don’t want themselves, their families or loved ones exposed to crazies, drunks, the mentally challenged and the obnoxious when they’re trying to shop or have a good time. So there’s another reason to go to Century City, Westwood, The Grove or Universal Citywalk.
I live near Montana Avenue and I’m not impressed with all the Starbucks, Coffee Beans, Dietrich’s, Seattle’s Best, Peets and the rest of the overpriced coffee shops seemingly on every corner. I don’t like the overly expensive merchandise in most of the boutiques or the “Montana Avenue attitude” of much of the sales help.
Most of all, I’m sick of the rude, aggressive motorists who seem to think it’s their right to cut off people legally crossing the street in marked crosswalks. The frustration of dealing with the street’s many curb bump-outs, islands and other anti-vehicle impairments has not made the street safer, rather it’s turned it into a real, life-sized version of a “Kill the Pedestrian” video game.
By the way, those same rude drivers who ignore pedestrians will park free in Wild Oats, stop traffic and drag their toddlers by the arm across busy Montana Avenue in the middle of the block just for a Jamba Juice.
My favorites are the mindless and inconsiderate snobs in oversized SUVs who park and block bus stops while their rugrats go into a yogurt parlor for a double-chocolate with sprinkles.
The Aero Theater has been closed for months, so that isn’t a draw these days.
The small neighborhood-serving businesses such as the Esquire Barber Shop with its $12 haircuts are an endangered species. Sooner or later, a French styling salon charging $75 for a men’s haircut (to cover the cost of a $15-per-square-foot rent) will eventually replace it.
When I was younger, I worked for Six Flags and Anheuser-Busch in public relations and promotions for their theme park divisions. I quickly learned that the positives of visiting an attraction must far outweigh the negatives if it is to be successful. Guests must have a rewarding experience if they’re ever to return or recommend the attraction.
When our politicians and city staff finally learn that same lesson and take steps to ensure that the good outweighs the bad, only then will Main Street, the Promenade and Montana Avenue become, in Flora’s words, “wonderful.” (Bill Bauer is a freelance writer and longtime Santa Monica resident.)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 23, 2004. Read the original PDF.