Pacific Beach Foot Traffic, Retail, Up in Smoke

p.s. nor do I sit on the PB Planning Group... hmmmm... (Jerry Hall)
— April 6, 2011 12:07 p.m.

Pacific Beach Foot Traffic, Retail, Up in Smoke

Interesting comments from DiscoverPB's Mr. Hanshaw and his Hospitiality Task Force. Isn't a 'task force' supposed to be looking at problems and developing solutions for everyone involved? If so, how is it helping by attacking the other groups and hundreds of members, that have been here decades longer than their own business 'improvement' district, and that have a rich legacy of service to this community? Mr. Hanshaw says they have 'limited resources' to attract other businesses to PB - well, ones that contribute to the mix of businesses here. I wonder how many other BIDs around San Diego would love to have a 'limit' of $325 thousand to grow their communities? He goes on to say the business 'improvement district' spent about 2% of their income on 'public improvement projects'. Does this include the dozen rubber trash cans they chained to our trees?
— April 6, 2011 12:01 p.m.

Pacific Beach Foot Traffic, Retail, Up in Smoke

The author didn’t mention that I do not represent the PB Town Council. I do not serve on the Town Council to address alcohol issues as I do just fine airing observations and thoughts at www.pbSpirits.com. Mr. Ligenfelder's statements that I or any PB residents are now set to 'come after the businesses' is an intentional distraction. Problems in the BID and the beach are two entirely different animals. Beach patrons were self-policed and didn’t do that great of a job. Have you been to the beaches lately? Bars are trained to serve responsibly. How are they doing? One recent SDSU study, including observations at several PB bars (http://tinyurl.com/3rdvasz), stated that servers gave a female patron, who would typically be able to process one shot of alcohol per hour, the equivalent of 8 shots of alcohol in under 50 minutes - over 90% of the time! PB’s enormous levels of drunk driving arrests, alcohol crimes (over 1900% citywide average in PB's core) and the myriad of problems it causes our other good businesses - including I might add the reputation of the good alcohol operators - are inexcusable. These noisy few say they're blameless, that everyone pre-drinks excessively, that it's their patrons fault for getting so drunk... or, laughably that it's the tourists (ROFL). Maybe these guys should change their motto to 'Anybody's fault but ours'. In truth, these operators brag that over 99% of their employees are trained to serve responsibly yet, just how are all these people getting so drunk so consistently in our business district? I support a conditional use permit (CUP) where all alcohol licensees pay into a fund, bigger or problematic ones would pay about $100 a month and the others about $35/month. This money would fund a focused ABC-trained SDPD Vice officer to mediate between the community and alcohol licensees and would enforce conditions designed to mitigate community concerns - things like too much noise, over-serving, chronic problems... things that they know they're responsible for but, openly violate because the state ABC and the SDPD don't have the resources to monitor them. The ABC and police are unable to adequately fund enforcement so shouldn’t the people making all the money (tens of millions in sales in PB alone) be the ones to pay for it? I do not work to remove alcohol from PB's business district nor restrict in any way people's constitutional right to drink and have fun. However, I do work to hold the problematic bars and restaurants accountable for their actions. So, cry me a river. To the BID and problem bars and restaurants - start working with the community and quit fighting it. We won't sit by and watch you continue to turn PB into a toilet while watching all the great businesses in PB get thrashed economically – and others avoiding us like the plague - just so you can continue to profit off of our backs. Enough is enough.
— April 6, 2011 11 a.m.