By Andrew Kay Liberman
The announced closing of the independent bookstore on the Promenade (”Midnight Special Bookstore nears final chapter,” July 10) is only a symptom of the larger problem addressed so well in the film now playing at the nearby Laemle Theater, “Sunshine State.”
There’s no one culprit in the McJiffy-lubization and Manhattanization of Santa Monica and the rest of the Westside. The erstwhile progressive Santa Monica City Council itself has for about three decades presided over unbridled development, building concrete mausoleum parking lots, bringing in only ever more and more consumers with their urban assault vehicles or two-ton combustion engines.
It is past time to say no to “slow growth” and no to “sensible growth.” It’s election time in Santa Monica. Time for someone to just say no, period.
From one who remembers strolling down the Promenade before it became the Mall Mart of the Left Coast.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 13, 2002. Read the original PDF.