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Yahoo!Fiesta Drunkathon? So there are two Fiestas: one a delightful community block party, the other a drunkathon for people who hit town with no interest other than mass partying downtown.
Old Spanish Days is a victim of its own success. Volunteers put on a wonderful week of events — most of them free — but Fiesta has also become a lure for those looking for a wild scene at the bars. Because the city has permitted a wall-to-wall nightclub Mecca, our Fiesta has become the place to live it up in Southern California. Even though drinking in public is banned, on Friday’s parade day, the clubs were jammed with revelers with their backs turned to the horses, carriages, and bands.
On the Beat
And tragically, two groups from Oxnard clashed on the sidewalk in the 600 block of State Street and decided to settle their problems right there. When one man in the fight whipped out his .45 and aimed it, police shot him down. Bullets were flying, cops were running to the scene, and people were diving for cover. Luckily, no one else was hit.
I don’t know if any of the fighters had been boozing it up in the clubs, but I don’t think they’d have been there if it were a row of tea shops full of sedate ladies in pink frocks and wearing big hats. And what’s up with coming to Fiesta with a .45 in your pocket and another gun back in the pickup? Was he in town to check out the antique shops?
I talked to police the morning after the shooting. They’d worked all night investigating. If officers hadn’t been on the spot and taken quick action, who knows how many dead bodies — including those of innocent pedestrians in the line of fire — would have been leaking blood on the downtown sidewalk?
So now what? I’ve heard many suggestions, many of them impractical: Close the bars during Fiesta. Ban booze sales. Block off the nightclub area and screen those who want to enter, as is done in many community events elsewhere. Impose a bar tax to help pay for the extra law enforcement. Limit the number of liquor licenses.
City Council elections are coming up. Street safety surely will be, and should be, a campaign issue.
I’m Subpoenaed! Yep, attorneys for the News-Press are demanding that I — along with as many as 60 or 70 other former employees (according to reports) — appear at next Tuesday’s federal trial of the newspaper, my former employer. I’ll be there, but the question is: Will the star witness take the stand? That, of course, would be owner Wendy McCaw herself.
Why Wendy wants us all jammed into the U.S. Bankruptcy Court building (which she owns) on State Street that day is beyond me. After all, considering the ill will McCaw has created among the legions of dear departed, does she expect to extract flowery testimony from them as to her beneficent management style and professional treatment of employees?
Or, as some suggest, is this just harassment, trying to throw a scare into us? And if we are to be sequestered as witnesses and not allowed to sit in the courtroom and listen to the proceedings, those of us working journalists won’t be able to report from an eyewitness standpoint.
Just why they want me sitting in some room while the trial goes on elsewhere is a mystery to me. And if called, what do I have to offer on behalf of the newspaper’s case? As far as I know, all the unfair labor practices the paper’s accused of, including firing eight reporters after a demonstration and terminating two others earlier, occurred after I cleared out my office and quit on July 6, 2006.
And from what I understand, some of the Subpoenaed Ones were not active in the union organizing campaign and not even eligible. And in some cases, they held jobs far removed from the dispute, including a secretary, ad manager, a special sections editor in advertising, and several community columnists who worked outside the building. Many are baffled by being called.
I keep reading petulant statements to the effect that as a business owner, Wendy has the absolute right to fire employees as she wishes. Not so, during a labor dispute. Longstanding federal laws ban punitive action against workers trying to assert their legal rights to organize. But those same labor laws are largely toothless, and enforcement can be strung out indefinitely by a rich owner who apparently cares little about the effect of a prolonged dispute on her business.
The trial will go on for a month, including off days. The prediction around town: The NP will be found at fault for most, if not all, of the 15 unfair labor practices, but will then appeal. And you know what that’s likely to mean: This case will disappear down a long and winding road of endless litigation and pettifoggery. Isn’t that the NP strategy?
Barney Brantingham can be reached at barney@independent.com or 965-5205. He also writes online columns at independent.com on Tuesdays and Fridays.
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"So now what? I’ve heard many suggestions, many of them impractical: Close the bars during Fiesta. Ban booze sales. Block off the nightclub area and screen those who want to enter, as is done in many community events elsewhere. Impose a bar tax to help pay for the extra law enforcement. Limit the number of liquor licenses."
In other words, don't take any stance whatsover against the booze culture and keep wringing our hands?
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billclausen (anonymous profile)
August 9, 2007 at 7:56 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I used to live downtown many years ago when it was actually a community, and not one big giant bar and toilet for drunk tourists, college brats and gangbangers.
We had grocery stores, thrift shops, flower shops, a pet store, local restaurants, mechanics, a piano store, etc.
I'm glad I moved years ago; and when I have no choice but to go down there, I hold my nose, run my errands, and get out as fast as I can. What is there down there but bars, expensive tourist shops, and trendy eateries?
Oh yeah..and college kids and out of town drunks vomiting and relieving themselves on sidewalks and throughout the neighborhood.
Like I said, one big bar and toilet.
Fiesta...what a nightmare; an annual celebration of genocide soaked in booze, wrapped up in pretty horses and a children's parade so as to make it palatable. But we all know what it is; everyone is just afraid to say it.
Yeah...how about that for starters; close the bars...for good. As if THAT will ever happen. Because after all, the city and the Business Improvement District & the boyz at the Chamber of Commerce are not about to give up all those kickbacks they get from bar owners. The commercial landlords aren't about to give up those hyperinflated rents and triple-net lease extortion agreements either.
Santa Barbara is a city in decay. How sad. It used to be a nice community.
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Holly (anonymous profile)
August 10, 2007 at 1:54 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Holly, wake up. You live in a dream world. Kickbacks to the Chamber of Commerce from bar owners. Are you serious? You should be very careful what you accuse people of, with absolutely no basis behind your statement. College kids and tourists relieving themselves and vomiting in the street! Come on? It must be Armageddon down there. Surely it is not safe to even walk the streets in daylight let alone at night.
And your suggestion to close the bars. How very American of you. This great democratic society we live in should be held to your standards because, God forbid, the kids are having fun down there. And you old farts hate to think of people younger than you having a good time.
Maybe it's time to sell your multi million dollar place here (real estate values have climbed at an astonishing rate here in the last ten years, considering the town has gone to the dogs so much) and move to an old farts home in Florida. You already live in a different place in your head, why not actually physically move. I think you’ll be very unpleasantly surprised at how bad things are in other places and how great they really are here!
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wanker913 (anonymous profile)
August 12, 2007 at 4:39 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I live right downtown, two blocks from the bars, and drunks do vomit and urinate on the sidewalks here every single weekend, despite the fact that the police are everywhere, doing everything they can. Big downtown events like fiesta and solstice are often followed by violent crimes here committed by people from out of town. Yet the city is spending a fortune patrolling this neighborhood and the area continues to be gentrified. New residents are not going to tolerate all this mayhem. The only solution is to reduce the number and concentration of clubs serving alcohol. If they only allowed one club per every city block or two, it might help quite a bit. You wouldn't have as much of a scene and the city would save a lot of money.
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il_miglione (anonymous profile)
August 13, 2007 at 11:59 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Sure, make a big deal about the drunks downtown. At least most of them are walking. No one says anything about the posh parties at private homes, especially near the Mission, where the Santa Barbara social set gets sloshed out of their gourds and then drive home. I'd rather have some drunk peeing on the sidewalk than behind the wheel of their big Yukon SUV barreling down Anacapa.
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jessica_jones (anonymous profile)
August 15, 2007 at 8:55 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I come to Fiesta every year because I believe in community cultural events, and because there have been members of my family living in SB off living there since 1926. It is a time for local musicians and dancers to perform, and a time for all of us to see them and participate in this "family event." All the drinking is extra-curricular and I hold the Mayor and City Council responsible for allowing it to have gotten out of hand. They are the ones who can set the pace to protect the children and their families who have participated for generations. Is this all about money, or is it about community spirit? Let's get our priorities straight and clean things up.
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suzyque (anonymous profile)
August 15, 2007 at 1:34 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Actually, Jessica, the drunks who pee and puke on my street every weekend do so while walking to their cars! There's a spectacular wreck about once a month, invariably on a Friday or Saturday between around 2 a.m.
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il_miglione (anonymous profile)
August 17, 2007 at 4:17 p.m. (Suggest removal)
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