Santa Monica has been invaded by a scourge of ‘Woke Lawlessness’, a group of locals who ask for federal protection in the iconic claims of the city of the beach to the west of Los Angeles.
The Santa Monica coalition, as they call themselves, wants the governor of California, Gavin Newsom and President Donald Trump, send to the National Guard of the Army to establish control points in the center as he did around the Palisades fire in January.
As they see it, local elected officials court instead of discouraging the consumption of unbridled drugs, crime and lack of housing in the city.
«There is depravation in the streets,» said John Alle, a commercial real estate investor who co -founded and is financing the group looking for more police and stricter laws.
‘We have an imprudent situation that is being careless by the officials of the city of Woke. It is a crazy outdoor asylum.
«We need a federal participation in the catastrophe in which Santa Monica has become,» added Jessica Rogers, another co -founder of the group.
Like many cities, especially those that depended largely on tourism, Santa Monica is affected when stores, restaurants and other businesses closed during the Covid pandemic.
Also like many other communities, it has not been completely recovered.
Santa Monica has been invaded by a scourge of ‘Wake Lawlessness’, a group of premises who ask for federal protection in the iconic claims of the city of the beach to the west of Los Angeles.
The warm climate of Santa Monica, easy access to the end of the bus lines and trains of Los Angeles County, and the beaches, parks and public spaces have attracted homeless people to the neighborhood
About 40 percent of the promenade commercial district promenade of Third Street, where Alle has or has financed four large commercial properties, is vacant.
The same goes for almost 70 percent of the adjacent outdoor shopping center Santa Monica Place, whose owner, the Macerich company, recently breached its loan of $ 300 million.
Meanwhile, Santa Monica’s warm climate, the easy access to the end of the bus lines and trains of the Los Angeles County, and the beaches, parks and public spaces have attracted the homeless people to the neighborhood.
A walk almost anywhere in the center includes meetings with people from Mhanding. The camps have appeared on the sidewalks where Louis Vuitton and Fred Segal used to have stores.
The needles and methamphetamine pipes are scattered in three parks of the city and on the beach near the iconic dock of Santa Monica, and overdose are informed, especially with fentanyl, almost daily.
With commercial real estate vacancies have been embedded in the income of the city’s sales tax, which help finance police officers, firefighters and paramedics of Santa Monica.
Emergency services have unfortunate problems, they cannot keep up with demand.
A homeless man lies in the middle of a park in downtown Santa Monica
A walk almost anywhere in the center includes meetings with people from Mhanding. The camps have appeared on the sidewalks
The famous promise of the third Onc street was bustle of tourists and buyers. Now it is practically desert
Businesses are paying for private security and unarmed «ambassadors», whose work is to move away homeless people and call the police to inform them
The stores that remain there report high levels of robbery: people who blatantly steal articles from the noses of the merchants.
Business owners often do not report those crimes for fear of losing their civil liability insurance.
Tenants like Adidas and Abercrombie & Fitch feel so uncomfortable for the conditions in Santa Monica that negotiated monthly leases on the promenade.
«Most renowned stores have gone,» Rogers said.
The hotels also suffered when the voice has spread that tourists are stolen and attacked.
Without sufficient police officers, the city government evaluated the owners along the Paseo Marítimo and the famous Oceanic Avenue of Santa Monica for the cost of private security guards and unarmed «ambassadors», whose work is to extract the homeless people from the sidewalks and call the police to inform them.
Police encouraged residents, buyers and tourists to bring whistles and pepper spray, and women were advised not to walk alone at night.
Security, among other concerns, led the American Film Institute to move the Annual Film Festival that he held in Santa Monica for more than 30 years to Las Vegas.
About 40 percent of the commercial district of Promenade Street, once popular, is vacant
Stores that remain there report high levels of robbery: people who blatantly steal articles from merchants from merchants
The organizers of the 2028 Olympic Games cited the crime and the lack of housing in Santa Monica when they passed it for the beach volleyball competition, choosing Huntington Beach.
In addition to the golf, which will be carried out in a field that extends to Horcajadas over Santa Monica and Los Angeles City Lines, another Olympic event there will not be held there.
Alle, 57, said he was walking through Palisades de Santa Monica Park in 2023 when he was skipped by a man whom he refused to deliver his phone and wallet.
The man hit him to the ground, repeatedly kicking him in his head even after he fell unconscious.
Alle suffered a broken jaw and permanent damage to his vision even after two brain surgeries.
He also reported one night last year when Lana Negrete, who now serves as mayor of Santa Monica, needed her to escort her to her car because two men harassed her on the promenade.
The Santa Monica coalition includes some 5,000 residents, companies and premises who «want to prevent the city from being destroyed,» Alle said.
The group is demanding to the Los Angeles County Health Department, its director and a clinic in the nearby Venice for providing free needles funded by taxpayers in the last four years in three parks in Santa Monica.
A man is arrested by several police officers in the center of Santa Monica
The group affirms that the local chosen officials are courting instead of discouraging the consumption of unbridled drugs, crime and lack of housing in the city.
The coalition points to its sight to the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, for alleged chronicle and poor management of emergency water supplies necessary to publish the January fires.
The program is intended to prevent the spread of viruses transmitted by the blood, including HIV, among drug users. But the coalition argued that it only encouraged the illegal consumption of drugs in the city.
Alle is so outraged by the program that, in 2023, he replaced a card reading
The coalition also opposes a proposed emergency ordinance that establishes a permanent entertainment zone ‘that allows alcohol consumption in open containers along the third walk street seven days a week.
He wants the city officials to slow down what their members see enough chaos in their streets, they do not encourage more.
Neither the mayor Negrete nor the administrator’s office of the city of Santa Monica returned the consultations of Dailymail.com to comment.
Several groups advocating the discouraged people in the city declined to comment.
The coalition takes credit for successfully promoting three senior officials of the city to resign, including a city administrator to whom Alle and Rogers allege federal funds of federal housing and urban development.
The coalition points to his view to the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, for alleged chronicle and poor management of emergency water supplies necessary to turn off fires.
It would be unprecedented that the state or federal government authorize the Army Guard to address the municipal problems of Santa Monica in a non -emergency.
A homeless man is stacked below a blanket surrounded by garbage
A homeless man talks to a private security guard whose work is to keep him away
Newsom asked the cities throughout California this week to approve the laws that prohibit the camps of homeless people and eliminate existing ones. It is too early to say how Santa Monica will answer
However, coalition leaders consider that current conditions there is a pressing crisis of health and safety.
«The councilor’s agenda is ruining the city and will spend years before the city can recover,» Alle said.
Rogers blamed the crisis in part to the strong form of government of the Manager of Santa Monica, one in which an administrator hired instead of the mayor or council members who hired that administrator effectively directs the city.
«The desires of residents are not being honored,» said Rogers, who, like Alle, lives near Santa Monica, but technically outside the city’s lines.
Meanwhile, Newsom, who spent years pressing a lighter approach to homeless, trying to provide temporary homes, has hardened his approach.
He asked the cities throughout California to approve the laws that prohibit the camps and eliminate the existing ones.
It is too early to say how Santa Monica will respond.
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