Hello SM City Council Members,
I am hoping some of us local business owners can get some time with you all to discuss the recent LPA ordinance for leases on city-owned properties.
As small business owners, particularly in DTSM, we are struggling with sales down over 30%, tourism down, the fires, and increasing costs. For example, we have clear pull-down shades to protect our small outdoor patio at BP Oysterette. On multiple occasions, we have opened up in the morning to find people sleeping and human feces left behind for us to clean up. These shades protect us from this and the wind and cold in the winter, allowing locals and tourists to enjoy a meal looking at the Pacific. In the past year, ours have been slashed 3 times, costing over $5,000 to replace. Video surveillance shows different people in the middle of the night vandalizing or trying to get in. One was screaming and just slashed the plastic for no reason. Many of my team members have quit as they no longer feel safe working at night in DTSM, walking back to their cars or parking in public lots. One was recently threatened by a guy in the public lot with a full blown spear gun. On a daily basis, we are interfacing with so many unhoused drug addicted, unpredictable people wandering the streets that it is making our already difficult job even more impossible.
Please read the closing report, which is one of many. We are also required to fill out annual transportation surveys that require all of our staff to register their names and addresses, which in recent months has been very challenging. We know this survey is to better understand how people are getting to work in SM and aims to promote using public transportation, but most of my team are terrified to walk to the station at night, let alone take the train as it is also very unsafe. Nobody is enforcing fares, therefore, there are many unhoused drug addicted people riding. I have a very good friend who works for the LA Public Health Department and I recently went to a talk he gave for business owners on what is happening on the metro and with resources. He said that though he is in full support of providing resources to help people get off drugs and housing, but he is seeing the same people over and over taking advantage of services and getting help only to return to the streets.
In regards to the recent LPA ordinance for leases on city-owned land, we have two patios that have small divided spaces between landlord-owned areas and city-owned land. We pay rent to the City for these spaces. Our patios are our lifeline and we are barely recovering from the fires. If this ordinance passes, from what I understand, it will require us to potentially unionize our entire workforce and could increase operating costs by 10-30% plus the legal costs of putting an LPA in place simply because we rent an attached 300 square feet from the City for diners. These aren’t costs we can absorb and really put small businesses at a disadvantage. As a few of you have accounting backgrounds, I would happily share our P and Ls to show that we are month over month losing money staying in business with the decline in tourism, rise in crime and locals not wanting to go to DTSM after dark.
If the goal is to target small businesses that have been paying taxes and fees in the City of SM for over a decade, this will surely do that. Is there a world in which there will be exceptions for businesses that have less employees or smaller footprints? Many of my colleagues are very concerned about the endgame here and the lack of support for local mom-and-pop businesses. I am not sure if any of you support any of us or spend time in DTSM, particularly at night, but things have not improved.
Is there a way to schedule a meeting asap as a group so we can discuss with you? Many of us work nights and attending a City Council meeting where we get 1 minute to speak is not adequate when we think of the long-term impact it could have on us. Please let us know if there is a time we can coordinate with either the Chamber or we can host if need be to get more information.
In the past, I have emailed about concerns as you are our representatives and have had no response so looking forward to hearing from all of you about this huge concern.
Jen Rush
Santa Monica