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# Let’s do away with doggie democracy
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/lets-do-away-with-doggie-democracy/
- Published: 2007-05-10T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-25T00:02:29.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica Airport, #archive-import

*By SETH BARNES barnes-*

AN UNJUST WAR RAGES IN THE MIDDLE East, our nation reels after another senseless school shooting and Paris Hilton is about to be locked up for being a snobbish brat without a shred of common sense. What has it come to on this mortal coil? Things are falling apart. But amidst the tumult and disorder, a siren song of revolution is in the air. You can hear the drumbeat of justice drawing close at the edge of our fair city. The oppressed are taking up arms to face their overlords. Just across the Santa Monica border, residents of Mar Vista have put their foot down. They want, nay demand, the right to bring their dogs to our limited capacity, Santa Monica-taxpayer-funded off-leash dog park. Let freedom ring, indeed.

Like so many other of the world’s stark inequities, this doggie dilemma began with noble intentions when the city opened its first park in 24 years across from Santa Monica Airport. The Airport Park offers eight acres of soccer fields, playground equipment and an off-leash dog area. Oh, and to our neighbors in Mar Vista, it also offers a microcosm of the elitism that they believe wafts through Santa Monica like a layer of choking fog. Because only 45 dogs are allowed in the off-leash area at any time, and because it’s only the third off-leash park in a city of more than 90,000 souls and 5,500 registered dogs, only pooches with Santa Monica tags are allowed. Mar Vista, aided by Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, immediately protested the restriction as unfair to residents who live yards away across Bundy Drive. In an act of pompous grandstanding, Councilman Rosendahl bleated,“I have a responsibility to protect Los Angeles residents from unfair practices.” As I said, Viva La Revolución!

> “I have a responsibility to protect los angeles residents from unfair practices.” — In an act of pompous grandstanding, councilman rosendahl bleated, As I said, viva la revolución!

Of course to any reasonable person, this complaint is total, unadulterated hogwash. Such mindless rabble-rousing isn’t uncommon, but when dogs start walking a picket line of protest, you know people don’t have enough real problems in life.

Here are the simple facts: Los Angeles has a deficit of open space, especially in dense communities like ours.While the off-leash area is a boon to any dog owner, only 45 dogs are permitted at any given time, which hardly alleviates the needs of Santa Monica residents, much less visitors from across Greater L.A. The only sensible solution, unfortunately, is to ensure that at least some of our 5,500 registered dogs get to use the new park. Without the restriction, it’s reasonable to assume that the majority of users would hail from outside the city. A brand-spanking-new facility on a major surface street accessible to many surrounding towns and cities would quickly be filled with non-Santa Monica residents.

Proponents of Dog Park Democracy argue that they contribute to our tax base, and deal with our traffic and airport fumes. But does Mar Vista spend more in Santa Monica than the thousands of tourists who visit or any other neighboring city? I doubt it. Is traffic not a regional problem hardly attributable to one municipality out of 87 in the surrounding county? And if you think the majority of people flying out of Santa Monica Airport are residents, you really don’t know anything about the distribution of power and prestige in this world.

For all the advantages of living between the beach and mountains under continually sunny skies, there are certain compromises to living in Southern California. Sometimes that means you can’t bring your pet to a small play area funded by taxpayers from another community. You learned the lesson the first time you spilled an ice cream cone onto hot asphalt: Life can be, and often is, unfair. How we deal with that inequity determines how happy we’ll be.

Not to mention, the image of people walking a protest line with their dogs in tow hardly dissuades the notion this being a flighty, head-in-the-clouds La La Land.

In an ideal world, we’d have plentiful space and allow every dog a spot in our new park. But we live in the real world, and that’s the problem with starry-eyed idealists: They’re usually dead wrong and totally impractical.

That’s just the way it is.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 10, 2007.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/051007.pdf?ref=smdp.com)