Good or bad, Santa Monica has just moved one step closer to being a chain town.
In a town where its politicians claim to work diligently to keep its local flavor alive, it missed the boat when it allowed the Pier Restoration Corporation to sign on Bubba Gump Shrimp — a corporate chain restaurant.
It’s not Disney. But it is Paramount. The city sold out to the highest bidder, a conglomerate that’s willing to pay extraordinary costs to be here. But in the process, the city left one of Santa Monica’s few longtime businesses hanging out to dry.
While we agree that the Santa Monica Pier needs a major shot in the arm to attract tourism, the PRC was shortsighted in thinking Bubba Gump will become the success story they hope it will be.
The city, which owns the pier, has a right as a landlord to get the best tenant at the best price, but at what cost? A 50-year-old business that has been integral to the development of the pier deserved a better shot at being that success story.
It often appears that the city says one thing but does another. The evidence lies in the PRC’s own guidelines which stipulate that it favors locally owned, family businesses. But in the same breath, it ousted one of the oldest businesses in town.
It’s hypocrisy in the clearest sense. Citizens are not ignorant to these inconsistencies in the city’s policies and are growing tired of the lip service paid to them by public officials.
Naia Sheffield, who took over her family’s business at the Boathouse, didn’t deserve to be dismissed so rapidly when she proposed a new business plan that would have substantially changed the outdated restaurant.
If the PRC really wanted to keep the pier alive with local character and charm, its members would have worked with Sheffield in coming up with a plan that worked.
In a country shaken by a recession and tragedy last year, you would think the city would make it a mission to help its businesses survive.
We realize it isn’t Sheffield’s God-given right to run a business at the pier, but it is the city’s responsibility to help local businesses survive when it can. City officials took on that role when they said keeping Santa Monica vibrant with local businesses was a priority for them.
And while the quality of the Boathouse’s food, clientele and its ambiance is debatable, it’s all relative. Some PRC members felt Bubba Gump’s menu offerings surpassed what Sheffield had in mind.
Are these people appointed to public positions to be food critics? What, they don’t like the bisque?
It’s widely known that the composition of the PRC board was made up largely of people who have been serving since the 1980s. It wasn’t until after the Bubba Gump decision that were they replaced. Whether or not those new members would have helped keep the Boathouse afloat, we believe that at least the selection process would have been more on the level.
If we had visionaries at the helm last summer, perhaps there would have been a philosophical discussion about whether Santa Monica should be a chain town. In a sense, it already is and we have to accept it.
But we don’t have to accept our politicians talking out of both sides of their mouths.
We deserve better and so did the Boathouse. (Editorials by the Daily Press are based on the opinions of its editorial board, comprised of the publisher and the president.)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 17, 2002. Read the original PDF.