Retailers frustrated with city’s enforcement of Promenade panhandlers
Retailers on the Third Street Promenade are fed up with transients sleeping in front of their stores, chasing tourists away and creating foul smells.
But even more, they are tired of their complaints falling on deaf ears in City Hall. Merchants say city officials won’t respond to a problem that has manifested into the serious degradation of the Promenade’s business climate.
About 50 retailers, property owners and restaurateurs met last week with Bayside District Corp. representatives and the Santa Monica Police Department to air their grievances regarding public safety and maintenance on the Promenade.
The Bayside District oversees the outdoor mall and serves as a bridge between private business and the public sector.
However, not one city official came to the meeting, which affirmed retailers’suspicions that the current city government is not willing to do anything about the high number of transients in Santa Monica.
“I don’t care how busy they are, I’m tired of coming to these meetings without any city representation,” said Promenade property owner Ernie Kaplan. “Who are they? We elect them. We pay them, why It’s widely known that Santa Monica is a safe haven for vagrants because city government views people’s civil rights equally. But critics say elected officials fail to enact laws that prevent vagrants and panhandlers from disrupting business. Other cities don’t have high transient populations and merchants wonder why Santa Monica can’t pass tougher laws to protect businesses, which are the bread and butter for the local tourism economy.
Some say Santa Monica caters to transients by allowing them to loiter and be fed in public parks by outside church groups.
“We are the dumping grounds for every other city,” said Ye Old Kings Head bar owner Phil Ewell, whose statement generated applause from the group. “Why should we be taking care of everybody? The proportion is out of control for the size of our city.”
Up to 75 vagrants sleep on the Promenade each night, and many of them defecate and urinate in doorways of businesses. Once they are awoken by police at about 6:30 a.m., they spread out and begin their day panhandling tourists.
“We are not going to be able to survive if we continue to go downhill like this,” said Bayside Executive Director Kathleen Rawson. “Our long term vitality is at stake and we don’t know how many people won’t come back.”
It’s not just out of town visitors that aren’t returning to the Promenade. Ewell said locals won’t even shop on the Promenade anymore because they fear for their safety. They also don’t want to be hassled by beggars and think it smells “like piss,” according to one merchant.
“We’ve lost our local voters,” Ewell said. “They don’t shop in their own city.”
Among the many horror stories that were shared, Ewell described a recent incident in which a tourist witnessed a panhandler urinate on a seat in Centre Court and then told the tourist she wasn’t going to leave the area until she made “50 bucks.”
Another merchant said a customer from the Midwest came into his store two weeks ago saying he was physically threatened by a transient outside the store. The visitor asked him to do something, but the merchant doesn’t feel he has any support from city officials to do anything.
“He is looking to me to do something so he can enjoy his public space,” the merchant said.
Steve Meltzer, owner of Puppetolio on Second Street, said the behavior allowed on the Promenade has created an atmosphere that not only is unsettling to visitors but has created unrest with merchants.
“Visitors are blown away by what goes on here and we lose sight of that because we get used to it,” he said, adding the city’s inaction shows local government is not adequately representing the will of the people. “What we are doing for (the homeless) is actually destructive and enabling; not being sensitive and socially concerned. I think the time has come for something to be done.”
Mike Ayoub, owner of Gift Time on the Promenade, has gotten nearly 100 merchants to sign a petition lobbying the Santa Monica City Council to address the problem.
“We the retailers of the Third Street Promenade, want to make the Bayside District Corporation and the city aware of how the lack of cleanliness, the vagrant problem and the noise from the street performers is driving our business away,” the petition reads. “Our sales figures are down 20 percent. More and more people are disgusted with the idea of coming to the Promenade because of the element of people they find in the streets. It is not inviting.
“It is up to the city to create and enforce laws that do not allow vagrants to just hang out in the most viable shopping area in Santa Monica,” the petition continues. “We the retailers, feel that the city needs to focus on the business community.”
However, as Santa Monica Police Sgt. Calisse Lindsey pointed out to the group, the Promenade is a public street and it’s everyone’s right to be there. And the police can only do so much — officers enforce the laws that are on the books and the department will never have enough resources to bust every panhandler and drug dealer on the Promenade.
“Homelessness is not a crime, sorry,” she said. “It’s public property and people can sit on a bench all day long.”
One merchant wondered aloud whose rights the city is protecting.
“Is the city pro business or not pro business?” he asked. “From what I’ve seen, they are not pro business.”
Even though a few suggestions were debated on how to solve the problem, merchants walked away from the meeting clearly frustrated that their grievances most likely will not be addressed.
Rawson said their best recourse is to flood City Hall with formal complaints that outline specific incidents to show there is a problem.
“This is the political will of our current city council,” she said. “This is an election year, people will start to notice.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 26, 2002. Read the original PDF.