Fed-up Local Businesses Hang Sign: ‘Santa Monica Is NOT Safe’
Joel B. Pollak
A coalition of exasperated local business owners in Santa Monica, California, has hung a sign on the iconic 3rd Street Promenade: “Santa Monica Is NOT Safe: CRIME… DEPRAVITY… OUTDOOR MENTAL ASYLUM.”
The sign comes after years of increasing homelessness, petty street crime, and vandalism that have made the downtown area of the coastal town, once a high-end tourist destination, into an open-air homeless community.
A homeless person sleeps on the sidewalk in front of a shopfront in Santa Monica, California (Courtesy John Alle)
John Alle, a local property owner who organized “a group of retail and commercial tenants, residents, and property owners” into the “Santa Monica Coalition,” said in a press statement that business owners feel that local leadership “is not listening and does not care.”