By QUIRKY FEELING A special slave to the Daily Press
Returning to its liberal roots, Santa Monica is taking it all off — literally.
Citing mass resident complaints regarding plans to section off a portion of Santa Monica’s beach for dogs to roam off-leash, the City Council voted last Tuesday to scrap the K-9 area and institute a topless beach in its place.
The beach, which is between Montana and Arizona avenues opened this morning with little fanfare.
The unanimous City Council decision was reached after City Hall received more than 400 calls from angry Santa Monica residents complaining about potential problems a dog beach could bring to the community.
After reviewing the complaints, the council agreed that a topless beach would be more “appropriate” for the city and a less controversial use of the space.
“The dog beach was just too much of a headache,” said Councilman Bobby Coniver. “I mean, this thing, this idea can’t be bad. I mean, what kind of environmental problems can a group of half-naked women pose?”
Coniver, who’s been credited with the move, said the dog beach idea has left him scratching his head.
“I canvassed all 84,000 residents here during my campaign and not one of them thought we should let this city be thrown to the dogs,” he said. “I decided that once I was elected, I would make it happen.”
However in reality, the initial plan to isolate a 100,000-yard swath of sand for dogs to roam free faced mass opposition among environmentalists, cat owners and those with an aversion to feces.
According to files obtained from the City Clerk’s office, 150 residents called City Hall worried about the effect dog feces and old chew toys would have on the natural environment, while another 50 called complaining that a dog beach amounted to discrimination towards owners of cats and other small house pets.
City officials did acknowledge that the number of complaints is slightly inaccurate, as 20 calls were attributed to related concerns over West Hollywood’s recent ban on plastic surgery for pets, and another 10 were from residents asking that dogs be served up on platters in local Chinese restaurants.
Open to the public seven days a week, the city has decided to expand the beach’s hours past sundown so as “not to discriminate against our more modest beachgo-ers,” said parks and recreation spokesman Sandy Dune.
Coniver said having Los Angeles County’s only topless beach will serve as an economic stimulant in the city, as topless enthusiasts from around the world are drawn into Santa Monica.
“I know I have traveled all the way to France for a topless beach,” he said, adding that he estimates at least 5 million other Americans have as well.
But City Hall’s Director of Creative Financing Reeve Park said he is not so sure having a “nudy” beach will improve the economy substantially.
“The only thing we can say for sure at this point is that the sale of sunscreen will go up but that’s a pretty miniscule part of our sales tax revenue,” he said.
A marketing campaign designed to promote the beach throughout the country with advertising and product licensing is already in the works.
Ronald McDonland, hired by the city to direct marketing efforts, said the campaign will include the use of 3-D billboards, local cable and radio stations. All ads will be individually targeted to cities around the country.
Atlanta will be among the first cities to receive the ads. While he declined to reveal many specific marketing strategies, McDonland said the campaign will include billboards along highway I-95 reading “Let your Georgia Peaches lay out in sunny Santa Monica.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 1, 2005. Read the original PDF.