HomeMy WebLinkAbout08-20-2013 ac schmidt SS1AGENDA
CORRESPONDENCE
Date $- a
Schroeder, Sheryll
From: Ashbaugh, John
Sent: Tuesday, August 20, 2013 10:29 AM
To: Lichtig, Katie
Cc: Schroeder, Sheryll; Johnson, Derek
Subject: FW: Alcohol Moratorium
fyi
John B. Ashbaugh
San Luis Obispo City Council
RECEIVED
AUG 20 2013
DLO CITY C: J
-----Original Message -----
From: rschmidtgrain.org [rschmidt(cbrain.org]
Sent: Monday, August 19, 2013 12:23 PM Pacific Standard Time
To: Marx, Jan; dcarpen(&slocity.org; Ashbaugh, John; Smith, Kathy; Christianson, Carlyn
Subject: Alcohol Moratorium
Re: SS —Alcohol
Dear Council Members:
It's time for a moratorium.
You need to stop issuing alcohol -dispensing permits downtown once and for
all. It's time for a moratorium. Just say "No!"
You serve the residents of this city, not just those who want to profiteer
off us by getting their customers drunk on overpriced juice, then turning
them loose on the rest of us. Of course, your own city administration is
another profiteer, since they see this proliferation of juice -sellers as
an opportunity to profit off sales tax.
If it is indeed the city's goal "of maintaining the downtown as the social
and entertainment center for visitors and residents alike," you've
flunked. I don't go downtown much any more, and I never venture below Palm
Street after dark. Why? I feel intimidated and endangered by the drunken
punks, male and female, who roam the streets downtown at night. It's a
very unpleasant and unsafe place to be, and thus I no longer patronize any
of the entertainment or restaurant spots there in non -daylight hours (and
extremely rarely in daylight hours, either).
Furthermore, downtown is just plain tacky with all the crappy greasy
restaurants and bars that make it what it is today. Nobody needs to go
there. (Went down one weekend recently with relatives who'd dropped by;
they picked a trendy -looking not-too-cheapy restaurant from the street,
walked in, went "Oh, no!" because of the stale grease smell, and walked
back out. I'd tried to persuade them not to go downtown to eat, but being
tourists they'd heard soo much about beautiful downtown SLO, they
insisted; they weren't impressed.)
As for staff s claim "incidents" are well -controlled, this is nonsense. I
live a mile from downtown, and after the bars close, we hear the drunks
parading away from downtown, and typically have several serious vandalism
incidents ($thousands of $$$) each year on our street -parked cars on the
drunk nights (Thurs. through Sat.). For your ivory tower planning staff to
suggest things are under control shows what happens when you staff the
place with clueless carpetbaggers.
In discussing one vandalism incident with the police officer who
responded, he was really upset at conditions in SLO. To protect his
identity, I'll not be too specific, but he'd come here from a
not -well -regarded place to our south where poverty, gangs, violence,
graffiti and vandalism are a way of life, but he said he'd never seen
anything as prevalent and dreadful as the level of wanton vandalism here.
He attributed it to drunks wandering the streets.
So, enact that moratorium. NOW!
Richard Schmidt