Streaking to the finish
Spooky Santa Barbara
Westmont volleyball wins eighth in a row with two regular season games remaining - A3
A photographic look at the city’s Halloween decorations - B1
Our 167th Year
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MON DAY, O C TOBE R 31, 2 02 2
Natural Cafe to close State St. location By NEIL HARTSTEIN NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
The Natural Cafe owner Kelly Brown has announced that, after 30 years of running his restaurant at 508 State St. he is closing the eatery because of problems with increasingly aggressive homeless people, a proliferation of rats resulting from the downtown parklets and speeding bicyclists and skateboarders. The Natural Cafe, a Santa Barbara-based chain, will continue to operate its restaurants on Hitchcock Way and at the Camino Real Marketplace in Goleta. Mr. Brown announced his plans to close his restaurant on lower State Street in a letter to his landlord, Jim Knell and Sima Management
explaining why he is not renewing his lease. “I am writing to inform you that after 30 years, The Natural Cafe on State Street is closing it’s doors,” he wrote. “Although we have been dealing with the same issues since the day we opened, things have taken an extreme turn for the worse the last few years. “Homelessness, whether its guest-staff interaction or aggressive panhandling, has always been challenging,’ he said, “but it has now turned into straight up criminality. 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,” In addition, Mr. Brown cited a “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. “Look under any parklet and you will find rats nests. Food is just falling on them from above,” he said. He also noted the problem with bicyclists and skateboarders speeding down the closed street, running stop signs “and putting themselves and all pedestrians at constant risk.” All of these issues have become exacerbated by COVID and the parklets, he said. “Not sure why you call them parklets. For the most part, it’s cheap looking, trashy 2 x 4 wood structures that greatly diminish what Please see CAFE on A4
KENNETH SONG / NEWS-PRESS
Natural Cafe owner Kelly Brown cited problems with the homeless population, rats and speeding bicyclists and skateboarders as reasons for closing the State Street eatery.
Efforts grow to save trees CAMP holds Modoc Road rally ahead of vote by Board of Supervisors
L.A., L.A. County buy into guaranteed income movement By ELYSE APEL and TOM GANTERT THE CENTER SQUARE
ARTHUR VON WIESENBERGER / NEWS-PRESS PHOTOS
Warren Thomas holds up a sign showing the number of people who signed a petition supporting the preservation of trees that could be removed along Modoc Road for a multi-use path.
By KATHERINE ZEHNDER NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
The Community Association for the Modoc Preserve held a protest rally over the weekend, ahead of Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors vote on the Final Mitigated Negative Declaration for the Modoc Multi-Use Path. Santa Barbara County is considering removing trees to allow for a multiuse path, which would be used by bicyclists along Modoc Road. But as of Sunday morning, CAMP had collected nearly 4,900 signatures in support of preserving the popular trees. On Saturday, “people gathered on Modoc Road with their homemade signs, saying things like ‘Preserve the Preserve’ and ‘Save the Trees,’”
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Chelsea Beach, left, and a fellow resident hold signs in support of Modoc Road trees.
CAMP volunteer Eva Inbar told the News-Press. “Cars driving by honked in approval, and people walking by stopped to chat. We were in high spirits, feeling like David fighting Goliath.” About three dozen people attended the rally, which took place at the intersection of Modoc Road and East Encore Drive. (The area is outside Santa Barbara city limits.) “We were able to educate a few cyclists that stopped by,” CAMP cofounder Warren Thomas told the NewsPress. “It seemed like seven out of 10 were positive, a lot of thumbs up. It seems like they appreciate what we are doing. “There are hundreds of comments on our petition, and dozens of those Please see MODOC on A2
(The Center Square) – Following a national trend, Los Angeles and Los Angeles County have embraced the popular guaranteed income concept to combat poverty by offering low-income residents no-stringsattached money. The city of Los Angeles offers a guaranteed income program to 3,200 participants chosen at random to receive $1,000 per month for 12 months. Los Angeles County has responded with two guaranteed programs of its own. The county’s pilot guaranteed income program involves 1,000 participants who will receive $1,000 monthly payments for three years. The budget is $16.3 million, and the county will use federal COVID-19 relief money to pay for the program, according to Los Angeles County. The program began in August. On Oct. 12, Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis said the county was starting a second guaranteed income program for 300 people between the ages of 18 and 24 who are already receiving employment services through the county. Those 300 randomly selected youth will receive $1,000 a month in guaranteed income for 36 months, according to a news release. Last year, the city of Los Angeles launched the largest guaranteed basic income program called BIG:LEAP. According to its website, this program provides “unconditional” $1,000 monthly payments to approximately 3,200 individuals for 12 months. Curren Price Jr., a Los Angeles city council member, said the program will be “the largest guaranteed income economic assistance pilot program in our nation’s history.” The program will cost the city almost $40 million. The people targeted in the BIG:LEAP program must be 18 or older and living under the federal poverty line. They also must either be pregnant or have at least one child. The initial data from this program was recently released in a report from the Mayors for Guaranteed Income, a group of mayors from around the nation promoting guaranteed income programs. The data shows that 34.94% was spent on food and groceries, 34.23% on retail sales and services, and 11.91% on transportation. According to another report, 80% of the participants are female, and 20% are male. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, a member of Mayors for Guaranteed Income, said in a news release that the BIG:LEAP program “is a small but steady investment in a simple concept: When you provide resources to families that are struggling, it can give them the breathing room to realize goals that many of us are fortunate enough to take for granted.” The trend toward guaranteed income programs goes far beyond Los Angeles, with Mayors for Guaranteed Income reporting that more than 44 cities have already implemented pilot programs. The mayor’s office and the BIG:LEAP program did not respond to requests for comment. Guaranteed income programs could work if they replace the network of other safety net social programs, according to some in academia. Antony Davies, an associate professor of economics at Duquesne University, previously told The Center Square that he was less enthusiastic about a guaranteed income approach to addressing poverty if it is just yet another government subsidy program. Davies said guaranteed income programs could be effective if they replace the bevy of other duplicative bureaucracies already in place in government social programs.
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Saturday’s SUPER LOTTO: 6-12-19-24-28 Mega: 1
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