Business Leaders Ponder Homeless Problem

Are these business leaders willing to address the problems the police have to deal with that are being caused by the bars/nightclubs?(Perhaps that they themselves own) ...or is singleling out and blaming the homeless a Red Herring to distract away from that issue?

Well I am often confused by the Chambers priorities. I recall when Casa Esperanza was in the planning pipeline. The County failed to in it's obligation to provide services so the city stepped in. The current location was selected after a long process and as usual pitted the neighbors against the city. It did not help that the Chamber's representative diminished the property owners concerns by eventually declaring that "this is not the Waterfront." It seemed all along that the Chamber and the Council wanted the homeless out of the downtown core and the plan was to move them to the underrepresented Milpas Street area. Well the plan backfired. Personally I never harbored hostility toward the homeless because I am aware that circumstances lead to this condition . I only rarely gave money but usually ended up feeling suckered so I stopped. It does bother me that many people in the community seem to have angry hostility toward the homeless.

What bothers me much more and keeps me from enjoying downtown is the bars and nightclubs. Also the traffic is much more threatening that any of the encounters with the homeless that I have had. I really wish the Chamber would retreat to their retreat and consider that what they want to do is attract locals rather than visitors and when they do that they will have both to support their businesses.

Bars, nightclubs, drunk college brats and yuppies peeing in the alleys and fighting with each other. Gangbangers, graffiti, choking traffic. Noise, lines, crowds and everybody jammed in like sardines. No parking, no left turns, suicidal bicyclists and idiots in SUV's.

These are problems the tourist-worshippers should be addressing. Because these are the reasons people who live in and those who visit the area stay OUT of downtown. It's a toilet, using designer beer and wine instead of water, and it needs to be flushed.

Instead of facing the real truth...as usual, they're figuring out better-organized, more profitable, new and creative ways of legalized socioeconomic cleansing of the SB landscape of its poorest citizens lest the tourists see them.

Let's see....downtown Santa Barbara is a fancy toilet (but a toilet nonetheless), so we'll blame the homeless residents of the city for the proliferation of bars and nightclubs, gangs, yuppie scum and college brats.

Boy do those homeless people ever have a lot of power!

I wonder if they can do something about the fires and tornadoes?

Just sayin'

Did anyone see the nationally televised spot last week featuring our lovely Santa Barbara and its new homeless middle-class population? It showed a middle-aged Caucasian woman preparing to sleep in her car in a parking lot with her two dogs since losing her job and then her home. Great PR for tourism!The homeless are not just a by-product of the bars downtown and are a growing population all over Santa Barbara County and nationwide. Drugs and alcohol are just the symptom, not the overall cause. Look to your local and national politicians and review their priorities.

"Bars, nightclubs, drunk college brats and yuppies"

Geez, if you guys don't like this place why do you live here?

Drinking has always been apart of the downtown culture, and it's a big draw for tourism. The colleges have always been here too, and tourism has always flourished.

Who cares about nightclubs and drunk college kids anyway? Do you live next door to a nightclub? Do you really have a hankering for being downtown at 11PM on Saturday night? This is a college town, if you don't like a party atmosphere then why do you live here? I find the atmosphere downtown quite enjoyable at all times of the day. I like how it changes from one phase of the day to the next, otherwise it would be boring all of the time.

I have no problem with the homeless downtown, either.

loonpt;

You seem to be making statements rather than asking questions. I really do care that the downtown that I do not live in hosts this unusually high concentration bars and nightclubs. I care for the people who live and attempt to do businesses downtown other than the booze and barf party crowd. Most communitys would not allow this huge liability and degradation even though they are a "college town."

Many people and business owners have challenged this two decade transformation of their district but thanks to the good people from Loon Point, the larger Chamber of Commerce appears to want boozey tourists dollars from Isla Vista and Oxnard rather creating a good economic environment for the people who live, work and do business downtown. According to the people who have an ownership downtown there needs to be a "phase" downtown for some downtime. How about all bars and restaurants closing by 11:00 P.M. I'd order a round of $16 Martinis at 10:30 P.M. on that ordinance!

I will address your comments loonpt. First of all, while I can't speak for everyone else here, I DON'T live in S.B., and when I did, I made it point NOT to go downtown but that doesn't matter, because I know someone who has for all of her 50-plus years and who has watched the bar scene invade her neighborhood. By the way, this woman's family has owned the property on which she's lived since the 1920's so I'd say SHE--not the bars--have first bid on what goes on in the neighborhood in which she lives.

You say that drinking has always been a part of the downtown culture. One could make a literal interpratation of that comments and say the drinking has always been part of American culture since everywhere you go, there always some alchohol. Racism and murder have always been part of our culture too so should we enable those things? The issue is that a few years back the powers-that-be have allowed bars to take over in certain areas downtown and I know a resident and a hotel that have had to take up a considerable amount of their time and energy goint to city council meetings and dealing with the city of Santa Barbara's poltical machine because people who were either mentally or morally incompetant made the choice a few years back to issue liquor licenses in such numbers that it has made life almost impossible for those who live and work in that area. Hotel guest and residents have to constantly fight to get a night's sleep while walking through the urine and vomit that these drunks create. In short, telling people to get out of town because you want to booze it up or at the very least choose to enable the drinking scene shows that either you wrongly believe that the bars were there first--which they weren't--or that you are a very selfish shallow person who simply wants the world to cave into your desire to be part of the alcohol culture.

The people complaining about this issue were there LONG before the bars started taking over.

Drinking to excess has NOT always been a part of downtown Santa Barbara. The concentration of bars and clubs on lower State Street is a relatively recent development …………… and the question as to why the powers that be decided that it would be a good idea can only be answered by looking at the disproportionate power the hotel industry has amassed in this community. This town hasn't been run for the people who live here for a long, long time.

I don't really have a dog in this fight, but I must correct katycrawford's post:

"concentration of bars and clubs on lower State Street is a relatively recent development"

... if by "recent" you mean over 30 years ago, and by "concentration" you mean more bars and restaurants because the underpass was finally completed to allow business development in the area. Some names from the past: Head of the Wolf, Maggie McFly's, Baudelaire's, Boom Boom Room... you get the picture.

According to a recent graph I saw the rate of increase has been much greater in the last 15 years.

Question for Katycrawford: How much of this is the hotel's doing and how much of this is the influence of U.C.S.B's students?

Ironincally, some of this biggest opposition to the bar scene has come from the Hotel Santa Barbara and the Holiday Inn. (Tamara Erickson and Kay Morter respectively) If you google the name Kay Morter you will see revelent stories about this.

For what it's worth,ten of the 16 active nightclubs in the ‘bar zone’ were issued night club permits within the last 5 years.
1
MYNT (formerly Study Hall)
519
State
4/2/2008

2
James Joyce
513
State
2/29/2008

3
Whiskey Richards
435
State
1/29/2008

4
Zelo Restaurant & Nightclub
630
State
8/24/2007

5
EOS
500
Anacapa
5/9/2007

6
Sandbar
514
State
2/23/2007

7
Tonic
634
State
3/29/2006

8
Ruby's Café
734
State
10/1/2004

9
Dargan's
18 E.
Ortega
1/26/2004

10
Indochine/Nylon Project
434
State
11/13/2003

11
Velvet Jones
423
State
6/1/2001

12
Sharkeez
416
State
12/18/2000

13
Rocks
801
State
12/18/2000

14
Wildcat Lounge
15 W.
Ortega
3/30/1999

15
Q's Sushi A Go Go
409
State
3/27/1998

16
O'Malleys
523
State
7/1/1996

Get with it.
Drunk college kids are cool- drunk homeless are not. College kids don't occupy a permanent stall in the public library restroom, making the facility unusable, and making Borders the new public library. College kids don't bother you for money.
New York and New Orleans have solved the visible homeless problem and have business and tourist areas that are a pleasure to visit. Due to misguided liberal leanings San Francisco is overrun with aggressive homeless who evacuate in public, spoiling your visit.
Figure out how New York and New Orleans did it and Santa Barbara, solve your problem before it gets out of control.

Corky write: "Drunk college kids are cool-"
Tell that to the hotel residents that are paying money yet can't get to sleep. Tell that to the hotel owners who lose money giving refunds to angry guests demanding their money back because their night was disturbed by these drunken college kids. Tell that to the residents who have to walk through the urine and vomit as they walk from their cars into their homes that the college kids cause.

Corky: Drunks of ANY type are not cool, be they college kids, homeless people, or decadent rich people trying to fill the void in their spiritually vacous lives.

This is not a case of one or the other.

Correction: I meant to say hotel "guests" not "residents".