Council puts off decision on whether to limit them downtown
Responding to the concerns of more than a dozen property and business owners, the City Council on Tuesday didn’t pass a proposed ordinance that would make it more difficult for chain stores to open outlets on the Third Street Promenade.
Rather than adopting the law, council members agreed to give local officials nine months to study the proposal and come back with their own recommendation.
Modeled after a similar law in Coronado, Calif., the proposal would require chain stores to seek and obtain a special permit before they open on the Promenade.
In order to get the permit, the stores would have to go through a public hearing and prove they would contribute to the mix of small and large, and local and national stores already in business here, according to the proposal, which was crafted in response to the influx of corporate chains that have taken over the Promenade in recent years.
Council members voted 4-1, with two absent, to send the issue back to the Bayside District Corp., the nonprofit that manages downtown Santa Monica, for more analysis.
City Councilman Bob Holbrook cast the sole vote against sending it back, saying he felt the market should determine what stores are allowed downtown and it’s a waste of time and energy to study the matter further.
Kathleen Rawson, executive director for Bayside, spent part of Wednesday making preliminary telephone calls, determining how the group will handle the task.
“We have a huge project in front of us that we’re just starting to talk about,” she said. “There are several ways we could approach it, but one of the first things we need to do is really clarify what we hope to accomplish.”
Rawson said Bayside members will discuss the issue early next month and begin to formulate a plan. She said the group will take a comprehensive look at every aspect of the perceived problem.
“What we need to do is fully explore all the options,” she said, adding nine months may not be enough time. “We’re going to need some help though, there’s no doubt about it.”
Rawson pointed to an earlier finding by a group of local business and community leaders that already addressed the influx of chain stores downtown.
“The Promenade Uses Task Force said we don’t think we should regulate it. Period,” she said. “And because the council didn’t accept that recommendation this is where we are now.”
At Tuesday’s meeting, nearly 20 people spoke in front of the council. An overwhelming majority of them were property and business owners who told council members limiting chains on the Promenade will hurt the overall vitality of the district. They said the proposed law also threatens to drive out small chains that can’t afford to go through an extended hearing at City Hall.
641,“I’m kind of at a loss,” property owner Wally Marks said. “I’m at a loss because of the inconsistency this body has taken in relationship to our past... this is an inconsistent action and it isn’t in the spirit of what I think the Promenade has developed and evolved since the 1980s.”
But not everyone who spoke to the council was against the proposed ordinance. Rob Rader, a Bayside Board member and local attorney, asked the council to pass the law. Rader criticized the property owners for not interpreting the implications of the ordinance correctly and said plans to control corporate growth on the Promenade have been in the works long enough.
“They’ve thrown out a parade of horribles against certain types of straw men or straw persons,” he said.
City Councilman Kevin McKeown supported the study but he said he would rather have voted for the proposed law, if support had existed from other council members. McKeown said it’s no surprise the property and business owners turned out en masse for the meeting because the corporate chains are paying rents approaching $10 per square foot, plus utilities.
“We hear from residents all the time with quite a different view of what is happening on the Promenade,” McKeown said. “They’re not just looking at whether the Promenade is awash with cash... what I hear from the residents, and I’ll speak for myself, is a sense of loss of our downtown.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 13, 2003. Read the original PDF.