By Tom Fuller Santa Monica
I’m still laughing about Joanne Gamlin’s letter, “Don’t give the developers any more fuel,” where she says, “Tourists like to see a few homes of historic significance” and that “a no vote on Prop. A will energize the city’s tourism industry creating a boom that eventually will help everyone.”
Sweet thought. However, I think that the real problem with the city’s tourist industry (and yes, it is the engine that drives the Santa Monica economy) is all the homeless people.
I have a theory that our “gonna change-the-world” city council actually wants tourists to see and “interact” with (most of us call it be annoyed by or intimidated by) the homeless as a way of educating society on the plight of the homeless (kind of an updated version of the Chinese or Cambodian re-education plan).
So, based on this theory, I have a great idea. We make a combo Historic Home- Homeless tour. It’s a great idea... see, we put homeless encampments on the lawns of historically significant homes. Then we entice our tourists to go on a tour of our historic homes. When our happy little tourists look disappointed as the bus pulls up to its first stop, we start the lecture...
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 25, 2003. Read the original PDF.