Free State Street. Reopen it. The decline of State Street over the last couple of years has been devastating. Once the main thoroughfare through town the closing of State Street has been disastrous. Our local government and the Santa Barbara Police appear unable to address the issues recently brought forth by the Natural Cafe which has chosen to close its doors after 30 years.

Citing complaints regarding the criminal homeless, the parklets, and the rat/vermin problems the owner of the Natural Cafe, Kelly Brown said, “There is no more business lunch, the tourists don’t go downtown. They go to the Funk Zone. There’s the criminal homeless and the parklet problems. This isn’t a restaurant issue. It’s a location issue.”

Brown fired off a letter this week to property owner SIMA and its founder, Jim Knell.

“The rat/vermin problem, which starts with the city and their lack of any program to address this, has in the last few years become intolerable,” Brown wrote. “Look under any parklet and you will find rats nests. Food is just falling on them from above.”

Brown said the government’s job is to level the playing field, but that the parklet program favors the few at the expense of the many.

“We need to remove the parklets, clean up State Street and police it,” Brown said. “Why is it so hard for the city to do these simple things? Seems like Job No. 1 to me.”

The letter also stated that conditions have taken an extreme turn for the worst in the last few years with homelessness.

“Aggressive panhandling has always been challenging, but it has now turned into straight-up criminality,” Brown said “Consuming alcohol and drugs in public, using planters for toilets, camping in empty storefronts or locking themselves in our bathrooms and showering, sleeping and using drugs is an everyday occurrence.”

Source: Noozhawk and Santa Barbara Indpendent

Bill Macfadyen: Natural Cafe’s Exit Exposes Downtown Santa Barbara’s Squalid Reality

“The 500 block of State Street, six blocks from Santa Barbara’s world-renowned waterfront, should be an ideal destination for locals and tourists alike. Instead, according to a longtime restaurant owner, it’s overrun with criminal vagrancy, vermin, and an indifferent, listless city government. He’s out. Kelly Brown opened The Natural Café 30 years ago at 508 State St. Last week, he informed his landlord that he’s closing the doors when the lease is up in March.

Fed-up Santa Barbarans should start demanding those answers from City Hall, although all they’ll get is a canned response about deferring to the latest six-figure consultant working on a State Street Master Plan to be unveiled in the next decade or two. Or this:

“Kelly has been there long enough to have seen it all,” said Mayor Randy Rowse . “He wouldn’t be giving it up if it were a viable location. To lose a longtime person on State Street like that is not a good sign.”

I don’t know how many signs Rowse and his colleagues need to see because Brown is just the latest in a long exodus, and he probably won’t even be the last to leave this year.”

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The heart of Downtown Santa Barbara’s entertainment and retail district was transformed into an expansive 10-block pedestrian walkway between Sola and Gutierrez Streets that’s referred to as the State Street Promenade. The idea was that now you could explore, browse, shop, sip, and dine while enjoying the architectural beauty, sights, and sounds of State Street—without car traffic. At first, it sounded like an interesting experiment that could have some real potential down the line. Unfortunately, a variety of factors, many mentioned above, is the current state of State Street.

When stores have to hire security guards to protect their employees on State Street there’s a serious problem that continues to be ignored. If our current version of local government can’t address this then they’re not doing their job. Hiring committee after committee to study the problem is part of the problem. Studies are a way to pass off something that might upset the status quo and delay any meaningful resolutions so nothing is resolved. Reopening State Street to traffic could be the simplest solution and the first step to addressing all the other issues that plague State Street.

Cruising State Street “back in the day” 2015

Santa Barbara Parklet – Palooza Rocks On The Independent