Positive Changes in South Beach

By Ellen Brennan

We regularly get overloaded with bad news and rarely hear the good. But
there is good news from the South Beach Neighborhood, where the changes in the last eight years related to crime reduction and relative safety have been notable.

In 1995, when I moved here, the area between Ocean Avenue and the beach, Pico and Seaside Terrace, known as the South Beach Neighborhood, was a very unsafe place to be. A large population of aggressive, unsightly, homeless panhandlers cluttered the street and the beach promenade.

Winos lounged in the chess park, drinking out of paper bags. Gang members hung out in the beach parking lots, causing vandalism, gang fights and noise disturbances in the early hours of the morning. Traffic off PCH brought nighttime opportunists.

The result was a mix of nuisance and crime that included the murder of the German tourist, muggings, beatings, thefts, cars regularly vandalized.

There were high-speed chases of stolen cars through the area, gang melees, graffiti on buildings and regular piles of broken glass in the
parking lots where radios had been ripped out the night before. This was the area where Loews, and Shutters were located, so tourists as well as
residents were at risk.

The recovery has come in stages and is due to specific events and actions
taken.

Immediately following the February 1, l996 Sea Castle fire, (likely caused
by one of the squatters living in the earthquake damaged building), a large
number of scruffy backpackers walked out of the neighborhood.

It was like watching a retreating army as they walked down Appian Way, carrying their bedding and belongings. The aggressive, unsightly panhandlers, who had cluttered the neighborhood and the beach, disappeared from the area over night.

Then, after a lengthy effort by neighborhood activists, the city closed the
liquor store at 1654 Ocean Avenue. This liquor store had the largest number of calls for service of any site in the city, and it became clear that
problems in the neighborhood would be alleviated if it were gone.

Upon its closing, the winos, and others who drank from brown paper bags and defecated on our sidewalks disappeared from the chess park and surrounding area.

At the request of residents, the City changed parking restrictions on the
block of Arcadia Terrace west of Appian Way. Nighttime parking was
prohibited, and the bottle throwing, boom-box partying from parked cars
that had disturbed neighborhood sleep for years was stopped.

When the chess park was expanded, the City incorporated it into its park system to permit the closing of the area at 8 p.m. This gave the police the ability to move the homeless who began camping in the chess park. Now the chess park is quiet at night.

Construction of the Moss Avenue water treatment plant required closing
Appian Way (the street through the middle of South Beach Neighborhood) to through traffic from PCH north of Seaside Terrace. This was necessary to make room for a construction staging.

Surprisingly, and unexpectedly, the nighttime crime and noise in the neighborhood diminished. For this reason, (and for traffic control purposes) Appian Way remains closed to traffic from PCH, and needs to remain so.

But the change that has made the biggest difference is the installation of
electric-arm gates on the beach parking lots as a result of a City Council
budget item entitled, "Neighborhood Livability." Access to these lots at night is now limited to residents only.

Potential vandals can no longer gain access to the lots. The piles of broken glass, the ripped out radios, the muggings, gang fights, drinking parties in the wee hours, have all stopped.

In addition, better lighting has been installed on Appian Way and on the
beach Promenade as a result of the Big Beach Project, the completion of Le Marigot and the rebuilding of the Sea Castle.

The police are doing their part as well. At a Neighborhood Association
meeting last year, one of the Santa Monica Police officers, who attended
as part of the neighborhood watch program, reported that he was regularly on duty in plain clothes at night in the area as an added protection, in
addition to the regular patrols.

The result of all this is that the South Beach Neighborhood is now a relatively safe place to walk, to park, and to live. The palpable sense of fear that used to be in the nighttime air is gone. As one Council member said recently, "South Beach is now a very different place."

While we know that things can change, and that we need to be vigilant about maintaining the gates, the traffic pattern and other elements that made the difference, those who have lived here through this metamorphosis are very grateful to all who had a part in making these changes a reality.

(Eds. Note: Ellen Brennan is chair of South Beach Neighborhood Association)