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# Readers get ‘hot’ and bothered
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/readers-get-hot-and-bothered/
- Published: 2006-07-01T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T18:40:22.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Business, Downtown, #archive-import, Homeless

*Q-LINE, from page 4*

This past week, Q-line asked: What must downtown Santa Monica do to compete as a Southern California hotspot? Here are your responses: ✆ “The residents and the tourist industry better come to grips with the fact that our City Council has approved the building of a vast number of low-income housing units opposite prime hotel property on Ocean Avenue, on the Sears property adjoining the pier, and the soon-to-be-rebuilt version of Santa Monica Place. City Council has predetermined and designated a good chunk of the downtown district as an extension of the Pico neighborhood, not a tourist destination. Low-income housing projects and tourist designations do not readily, or easily, coexist. The experiences of Chicago with the Capri housing project, Coney Island devastated by New York City’s inclusion of low-income housing there, Atlantic City with poverty and crime down the street from casinos that were built near the Boardwalk — clearly foretells Santa Monica’s fate. After all, who’s going to stay at the Loews or Viceroy or Le Merigot with housing for gangs and illegals a few feet away?” ✆ “The first thing we need to do is get a little class. At present, we are attracting and encouraging the wrong kind of element. Visitors don’t want to mingle and be challenged by gang members, bums, panhandlers, etc., and tacky, loud street performers. That’s the first step. The second is to establish a clean, safe environment. Well lit at night and visibly patrolled with security. The third is a homogenous selection of stores and restaurants. There are other things, but these three are major.” ✆ “First, I would ask the Santa Monica Daily Press to publish the names of those individuals and their businesses who wish for Santa Monica to become a ‘hotspot.’ That information would enable me to render an intelligent opinion. I would want to be certain it is not the same dairy men slithering out from beneath their rocks of greed to do another milk job on the city of Santa Monica, as they have done over the years. Still, with all the human and automotive traffic congestion that Santa Monica suffers with, it would seem to indicate that Santa Monica is already in a spot. Why make it hot?” ✆ “Yes, I think that in order for Santa Monica to compete with other cities in California, we should have some water lily pools, some beautiful chaparral, like maybe gardenia bushes, night-blooming jasmines and such. And maybe some jacaranda trees, and some trellises with beautiful herbs and lemons and citrus. And then, perhaps, some varied restaurants, because not everybody is wealthy who comes to visit. Have some restaurants like McDonald’s that are now featuring organic fare along with the other. I think that’s what Santa Monica should do to outshine everybody else in this lovely state of California.” ✆ “There are three things that Santa Monica would have to do to improve its image and market itself. One, get rid of the bums. Two, get rid of the bums. And three, get rid of the bums.” ✆ “I think the best thing that Santa Monica could do would be to somehow increase the acreage of downtown. It’s kind of confined. You could probably get a hold of those developers back in the 70s, I believe. They put a ballot measure on to build an island off the coast.” ✆ “It would go a long way if Santa Monica would clean the downtown area and keep it clean. The smells and the mess are intolerable. ✆ I haven’t been to the promenade... Today was the first day I’ve been there in four months and I’m sorry I went again. Just keep it clean, Santa Monica. You got the money. Do it.” ✆ “Very simple. Get the homeless off the Promenade and out of Palisades Park, or simply, get the homeless somewhere else.” ✆ “There’s no way that Santa Monica can compete with other Southern California hotspots at this present time, with the homeless population tearing down the Promenade, urinating all over the doorways, defecating in the alleyways, aggressively panhandling to tourists. Even people coming to the hotels don’t want to come because they’re scared. So if they don’t find a place to take them, find a place to put them. It’s just going to be a rebound effect. People are going to come and never come back.”

“I think we should stop competing with anybody. We are fine just the way we are. It’s too crowded already. With all the buildings that are going to be built and that are being built, it’s too much. Stop. That’s all I can say. Stop. We don’t have to compete with anybody. This is the best city in the whole United States, if only for the beach and the weather. That’s what I’m feeling. I’m very distressed with all the building that is going on.” ✆ “Santa Monica, to be a hotspot in Southern California, should have more nightclubs, like the Viceroy. Number two, we need more Wal-marts and more Targets, which were wrongly let go by the City Council a while back. Even the current mayor’s wife disagreed with him, and I agree with her. We need a Target and more low-income type things. The priority should be for reasonable prices and services, not corrupt unions which don’t do things according to their membership and just take their money... just like my maid told me.” ✆ “Considering the amount of money the casinos in Las Vegas and Indian reservations make, why don’t we bring back the off-shore gambling ships. I mean, people would flock to Santa Monica with all our other attractions. Add the gambling, you’d have a huge increase in revenue just from hotels and licenses. Good idea, eh?” ✆ “The Bayside District Corp. and City Hall should not be working to make Santa Monica a West Coast destination hotspot. That’s what Universal City Walk and the downtown convention center are for. They should be working to improve the quality of life for ✆ “How big do we want Santa Monica to be? How much of a hotspot do we want it to be? It’s already a huge magnet for people. About the only thing that would deter Santa Monica from being a hotspot or place that a lot of people would want to go to would be if the ocean took off and decided to leave the Pacific Coast. No ocean would certainly put a damper on things.” ✆ “Our City Council, run by SMRR, has already successfully turned our sleepy, crime-free, clean little town into a major tourist hotspot. Tourism brings in millions of dollars, but has transformed our sweet quiet homes into a Disneyland full of noise, traffic, transients, filth and crime. Our city employees have become a gigantic, over-bloated and overpaid bureaucracy, instead of the small, friendly place it once was. The only hotspot we old residents should agree to are the torches and pitchforks we use to chase these damn Communist bureaucrats out of office.” ✆ “I’d like it to cool down. It needs more variety in some places for residents to shop. Not just a lot of stores selling the same clothes for teenagers. Or they could go the other way and add to present classy effect with some tattoo parlors. The Bayside District is supposed to bring in revenue, not attack the residents it doesn’t even serve.” ✆ “In answer to this week’s question, ignore the Santa Monica Coalition for a Livable City. That’s SMCLC.” ✆ “Let me lend you my binoculars. I see another City Hall and Bayside train wreck greased with lots of taxpayers’ money about to happen. You can’t even begin to think of any kind of innovative ideas in the downtown area with the dullards who run this city. Look at the architectural boredom of the new library. Dump all the tax-gouching progressives and bring in some new people who have a common sense and a proven track record in downtown urban architecture and modernistic design. Small, interesting interactive stores, pavement lighting, observation towers. breezeways and bridges, free 24-hour parking, night-time laser store lighting and shows, and a big statue of Denny Zane astride the mall, waving a SMRR banner that says ‘I never met a tax dollar I didn’t like’.” ✆ “Stop building these big, ugly modern buildings. Get rid of all the chain stores. Bring back the charming boutiques and old-fashioned restaurants. Clean up the streets with all the trash, Including the so-called homeless. Have programs to rehabilitate those who want to be part of the Santa Monica community — that will be a very pretty city by the ocean.”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 1, 2006.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/070106.pdf?ref=smdp.com)