Primetime
By John Palminteri, KEYT News
In a matter of a couple of days, the heart of downtown Santa Barbara went from a crisis zone to a festival-like scene during an ongoing pandemic.
Restaurants were told it was fine to serve food and alcohol on the sidewalks, pedestrians could walk in the streets, and cars were relocated.
A special permit is required for this extension.
All this, however, was done without much or any review or public input and that’s led to emails and calls to City Hall.
Read more at keyt.com
As the icy Atlantic wrapped her frozen fingers across the mouths of the Titanics passengers, their last-words were parroted;
“But, this ship is UN-sinkable…
Good luck to those who are out and about now. I mean it. I wish you luck.
If this works I could see State being closed year round except during parades
The City’s overbearing restrictions, regulations, ordinances, and all their departments that have no concept of cost effectiveness, efficiency or “time is of the essence” thinking have handicapped small businesses in Santa Barbara, and that was before the government imposed shutdown! Now our small businesses aren’t just handicapped because of the local government(s) they’re on life support. Please let our small businesses do what the do best, serve their customers as the customers want to be served, and the best thing the City can do is STAY OUT OF IT! This is a great opportunity to try out the much discussed pedestrian only State Street, please don’t now ruin it by complaining to the City and forcing them to enact even more onerous regulations. Many things will work, some won’t, and our nimble small businesses will adjust accordingly… .. If you don’t like it or don’t feel safe just don’t go!. …. Many people do like it, are excited about it, and it’s the only way many of our local businesses will survive this disaster created by the State, County, and City governments (they closed small businesses, the virus didn’t). Let our dedicated, hard working, under-paid city employees determine what’s best for the patrons coming to State Street… wait, how can I mess that up!… Let our dedicated, hard working, under-paid SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS determine what’s best for the patrons coming to State Street.
Agreed! Many of those that are complaining don’t go down there to begin with – they just like to complain. Hoping that the business can see some success. I personally will avoid the area for a while.
Seems like a good idea to shut down the street to make for physical distancing. I hope the restaurants keep up their part with the disinfecting. I think I will pass on it for now.
@ 3:27, why do you give it a little test walk during a weekday next week, off hours between 2-4pm, mask on if you prefer. With the streets closed they’ll be as much room for physical (NOT SOCIAL) distancing as you like.
I doubt even half of the businesses in Santa Barbara will survive even getting to Labor Day, if your attitude prevails.
I went down at 1:30 pm mid-week to pick something up at a store…not a lot of people, it was very pleasant. Let’s leave it this way and see how it goes. I wore a mask, I didn’t touch any doors (just the bag of what I ordered), I sanitized my hands in the car…done!
Sam I was down there during that time frame this week for a special occasion. My little group wore masks, went to eat at a restaurant and the staff were great. The issue I had were the people downtown who weren’t wearing masks and got into my space. I don’t want the exposure right now. I’ll wait and see if we have a surge before going out and about where there are a lot of people congregating, which is what is happening down there at night especially. Not really my thing to go down there much anyways.
A new shut down is coming.