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Our 167th Year
MON DAY, NOV E M BE R 21, 2 02 2
Celebrating Brazilian culture Santa Barbara festival features music, dancing, cuisine
75¢
‘It’s just embarrassing’ Natural Cafe owner steps up criticism of State Street Promenade By NEIL HARTSTEIN NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
KENNETH SONG / NEWS-PRESS
Santa Cruz-based band SambaDá performs a live performance at De La Guerra Plaza during the Brazilian Day Festival in Santa Barbara on Saturday.
By KATHERINE ZEHNDER NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
The Brazilian Cultural Arts Center of Santa Barbara brought back the Brazilian Day Festival on Saturday. The free Santa Barbara event featured live music, dancers, Brazilian cuisine and more throughout the day at De la Guerra Plaza and nearby Casa de la Guerra. “It is our third year and our first year in a bigger venue, bringing this to the whole community on a larger scale. We decided recently to go bigger and do something in the park to gather community members and bring Brazilian joy to the community,” said Mariano Silva, CEO of the Brazilian arts center. Mr. Silva is also a professor of Brazilian dance at UCSB. This event was an opportunity for the entire Santa Barbara community to enjoy the vibrant culture of Brazil. Mr. Silva talked about what makes that culture distinctive. “I would say we are extroverts,” he told the News-Press. “We are very welcoming. It is one of the main characteristics of the culture. We are always trying to learn from others and celebrate with everyone. “What is unique is that we are always open to adjust, to learn and to celebrate,” he continued. “The sense of community is distinctive in Brazil and includes everybody. We like to make a place of diversity become unity. I want to learn from you and celebrate diversity. “If you don’t look like me, you have something to teach me. That is special about Brazilian culture. We are embracing, and community is the most important part.” Brazilian Day Santa Barbara featured nonstop entertainment at De la Guerra Plaza and Casa de la Guerra, which included Brazilian bands, dance classes for the community, the Kids Fun Zone, workshops and performances, Samba dancers, the Carnaval Parade, the Brazilian Bikini Fashion Show, local vendors, Brazilian Food and Oakberry acai, a beer garden featuring local brews and a bar offering tropical Brazilian cocktails. Please see BRAZIL on A4
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By NEIL HARTSTEIN NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
Dancers pose with young fans during the celebration.
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COURTESY PHOTO
Besides, he said, “there’s so much food out there” already from scraps dropped from parklet tables that the rats “don’t need the bait anymore.” He said the rats are nocturnal creatures that don’t come out until the early morning – from around 2-6 a.m. – after the vagrants “all have their money” from panhandling during the day and disappear for the night. Mr. Brown said downtown State Street “looks great” at night because “it’s dark and all lit up” by open bar signs, and people can’t see how dirty it really is. “It’s a bar zone,” he said. “Instead of the Funk Zone down by the beach, we’re in the drunk zone.” He also blasted the “cheap look” of the outside dining parklets. “It’s still a wood box on State Street, in front of beautiful buildings. It’s so third world cheesy I can’t believe it. “I’m not anti-parklet. I’m anti s****y parklet. If you want to do this, do it first class, Santa Barbara style, not something hokey-jokey and trashy looking” with their extension cords and cheap lighting. He said that downtown restaurants are struggling just to stay in business. Lunch-hour dining has pretty much evaporated, he said. People seen eating outside give the Please see PROMENADE on A4
The Downtown Organization of Santa Barbara has announced its series of holiday happenings under the banner “Downtown Santa Barbara: Season of Cheer.” The group is urging all Santa Barbara residents to mark their calendars and join them for one or more of these events in November and December. All activities are free unless noted. This year’s event series is presented by Consumer Fire Products, Inc (CFPI), a longtime supporter of Downtown Santa Barbara’s holiday events. They have sponsored the Holiday Parade, Christmas Tree installation and other holiday activations for the past nine years. “We are thrilled to partner with Downtown SB for yet another year of fun holiday events,” said Irene
Rhodes, CEO of CFPI. “Giving back to the community brings us a lot of joy, and we can’t wait to see people young and old take part in this year’s celebrations. CFPI wishes everybody a wonderful holiday season!” Montecito Bank and Trust is a supporting sponsor. The Season of Cheer festivities kick off with a free Candlelight Concert Series each Wednesday through Dec. 14 (with the exception of Nov. 23). Those attending will have the opportunity to enjoy live entertainment surrounded by holiday candles on the steps of the historic Santa Barbara Museum of Art from 5-7 pm. Attendees can grab a delicious meal from one of the many nearby restaurants or a beverage at Mosaic Locale (Draughtsmen Aleworks, Old Town Coffee, Buena Please see EVENTS on A2
LOTTERY
i n s i de Classified.............. B4 Life..................... B1-2 Obituaries............. A4
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Kelly Brown
Holiday events planned for Downtown SB
FYI To learn more about the Brazilian Cultural Arts Center of Santa Barbara, visit bcacsb.com.
The owner of The Natural Cafe on Sunday stepped up his criticism of conditions on lower State Street – citing vagrants, rats, speeding skateboarders and bike riders, the overall “dirtiness” and the “cheap-looking” outdoor dining parklets lining the downtown promenade – even while reaffirming his decision to leave by the end of March. Natural Cafe owner Kelly Brown told the News-Press that it’s time for city leaders to show some courage and turn things around before it’s too late. “What it requires is strong leadership, not kicking the can down the road and avoiding the issues,” Mr. Brown said. “It requires out-of-the-box thinking on how you get people downtown. It requires a vision of greatness and how to get there. “If you can’t honestly identify the issues downtown, if you want to sweep things under the rug, they’ll never get fixed. It’s going to get worse.” He said he met with other business owners Thursday at a Downtown Santa Barbara food and beverage committee meeting, and they said nothing to get him to change his mind about closing his restaurant at 508 State St., a 30year downtown fixture. “It was hilarious,” he said. “I would have preferred to not even go there. All they wanted to talk about was rats. They were laughing that they don’t exist” because the city has a rodent abatement program. “The reason they have that (program) is because of the rats downtown,” he said. Because the city is not allowed to poison the rats and uses rat bait instead, only one rat can be trapped at time, he noted. “Once one is stuck in there, no one else is going in there. And they only clean it once a week.”
Sudoku................. B3 Weather................ A4
Saturday’s SUPER LOTTO: 1-24-32-34-44 Mega: 25
Sunday’s DAILY 4: 4-7-4-2
Friday’s MEGA MILLIONS: 2-14-16-38-66 Mega: 9
Sunday’s FANTASY 5: 4-19-32-36-39
Sunday’s DAILY DERBY: 04-12-06 Time: 1:42.45
Saturday’s POWERBALL: 7-28-62-63-64 Meganumber: 10
Sunday’s DAILY 3: 7-3-3 / Midday 2-1-1