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# Ironing out the city's brand
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/ironing-out-the-citys-brand/
- Published: 2006-04-07T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T17:32:03.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Downtown, #archive-import, Homeless, Homelessness

Due to our April Fool’s joke last weekend, in which the entire April 1-2 edition was made-up, the responses to the previous week’s Q-Line question didn’t get published.

“What is your current perception of Santa Monica? How can Santa Monica best brand itself as an ‘unforgettable beach city?’”

Here are your responses: ✆ “My current perception of Santa Monica is that our politicians have sold our sleepy little beach city out. Think about it. They welcome high density, parking problems, traffic, low-income housing, the homeless, rodents in the park and a dog beach, all the while banning second-hand smoke. It’s unforgettable all right, just the way it is. ✆ “This can only happen by returning to the past. My family and I have been residents of the city for almost 40 years and remember it as a clean, happy, pleasant and peaceful place to work, travel, shop and play in. That climate has changed for the worse over the years with the growing vagrant population and the filth and overall degrading quality of life around us. Until this problem is remedied, we will never have a beautiful beach city again. There are other problems like too much overgrowth, parking, etc., but vagrancy is the absolute worst.” ✆ “Trust me, anyone who has resided or visited Santa Monica, have that occasion engraved in their conscious mind with a form of memory ink that cannot be erased with laser.” ✆ “We all know very well what the perception of the city is ‘home of the homeless,’ and that is really a euphemism for ‘Skid Row by the sea.’ They are one and the same.That wolf in sheep’s clothing, the ACLU, and the do-gooders, most of whom are from outside Santa Monica, keep this mess going. Until this problem has been cleared up, our wished-for image as a lovely beach community will never become a reality.” ✆ “I love the city of Santa Monica. I have lived here for many years.I am a disabled person, and I think you should fix the streets, because this weekend I was in my wheelchair, and the streets were just awful. So, please fix the streets and put some of the overflow of the money we have into fixing them, OK?” ✆ “My current perception of Santa Monica is that it is one big urinal. It is already an unforgettable beach city because it is so dirty, gross and dangerous now. Living here, one doesn’t have the luxury of forgetting all of the smelly, disgusting transients and the filth that comes with them. Everywhere you look or breathe, there is the stench and the sound of crazy and antagonistic rotting bums. What I have forgotten is how beautiful and clean this city once was.Thanks to our City Council, this city is now one big toilet. Nice job.” ✆ “Unfortunately, Santa Monica already has an unforgettable image or whatever you want to call it, because of the bums.Any time a tourist comes to Santa Monica and had a run-in with a bum on Third Street or at the beach or wherever, these wild-eyed drunken bums harass and spit on them, that tourists will never forget it, you can be sure of that.” ✆ “What is my current perception of Santa Monica? How can Santa Monica brand itself as an unforgettable beach city?

Well, it already has. My perception of Santa Monica is that it’s a neat city, where the debris meets the sea... one where there is commerce despite the fact the local government police the haves so they can give handouts to the have-nots. Actually, the city has a lot more heart than brains. It’s a showcase for homelessness, where having a shopping cart is actually is even a status symbol. There is talk of a shopping cart lane replacing the diamond lane, because the homeless would not have to wait in traffic like the rest of us.I know the police prefer to give jaywalking tickets to the well-groomed and let the homeless slide. It makes me sick.It makes me want to quit my job and buy crack with rent money and hang out all day at the Bum-a-nade.” ✆ “Well, all in all, I think I would rather live in the projects in the inner city.The projects have good underwriting, reliable service contracts, and warranties. Most important, products improve with customer demands and needs, something Santa Monica does not.” ✆ “My perception of Santa Monica is that it is a stinking city over-run by bums, who turn our streets into trash dumps and latrines.” ✆ “Too bad Nat King Cole isn’t here to sing ‘Unforgettable.’ Even his singing could-n’t help the misdirection of this town. Has anyone on the council ever been to the beach, surfed or swam in the ocean? Our leaders are more intent on copying downtown Los Angeles with its high-density population, escalating building heights, traffic, parking and bum issues. Santa Monica needs to look at Laguna Beach, Manhattan Beach or Santa Barbara for examples of efficiently-run, beautiful beach towns. The city has got to restrict its runaway building growth and its endless quest to get more taxes to fund its self-induced problems.” ✆ “We are already branded as an unforgettable beach city. The People’s Republic of Commie-Monica, the Dizzy-land tourist trap and paradise bum beach where apartment owners are policed and with thousands of over-paid and unneeded city employees and programs, yet not one clean toilet or street, we are the city urinal of the Pacific.” ✆ “Many rude and unsafe drivers. The beaches could be kept cleaner.” ✆ “Home of the homeless. That’s my current perception of Santa Monica. How can we best brand the city as an unforgettable beach city? You’ve got to be kidding me. We’re paying somebody over a $100,000 a year as the head of tourism for Santa Monica, to do this kind of ‘branding’ marketing and advertising. So you want us to do the heavy lifting for Santa Monica, when we’re already paying somebody over $100,000 a year for a silly job like head of tourism? Give me a break. Clean up the scum and get rid of the bums and let’s start from there.”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 7, 2006.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/040706.pdf?ref=smdp.com)