Effort Aimed at Staying Competitive
In a unique effort to market the downtown against all foes foreign, domestic, or Santana Row-like, the Convention and Visitors Bureau has kicked off it’s Clean Up and Smell Well campaign that is centered around making the downtown smell like a new car.
Car Freshener, Inc., a New York based company that produces the little pine trees that swing odoriferously from rear view mirrors of cars around the world, has been hired to turn downtown into that uniquely intoxicating new smell - a mixture of leather and plastics that emanate from the seats and dashboards of new automobiles.
San Jose State scientist George Gugale says that in order for this risky attempt at targeting the olfactory to work, the smells must penetrate the chemoreceptor that are located in the olfactory epithelium.
“Whatever,” says Dan Fenton of the Con-Vis Bureau. “We just want that new-car smell.”
Several city work crews started hanging giant cut-out, paper-based trees, dipped in scented oils, from buildings, light posts, and public art. Early sample polling has proven that those getting a whiff of the new aroma, report higher satisfactory ratings with downtown than those that didn’t inhale.
But there are some skeptics.
“This is all well and good at first blush.” says Mr. Gugale. “There may be lots of happy people upon their first visit to downtown, but just remember, once that state of bliss, that euphoric feeling of sitting in that new car and taking a deep breath wears off, there is always buyer’s remorse.”
John,
You forgot about the big can of “whoopAss” to get rid of drug dealers in and around foutain ally.
The can, which will be three stories tall, will spray raid down on the drug dealers that the police are too incompetent and cowardly to address.
You out to see the flyswatter the police want to use to get the jay walkers!
Once Mayor Ron gets a whiff of artificial pine expect the sound of chainsaws to return to the downtown—in a big way. For San Jose has discovered that good things happen when you fell trees, and not until every last tree is dropped will the city be free double the length of the race car route, offer St. James Park to the Cirque, and secure for the new City Hall bragging rights as the downtown’s exclusive squirrel habitat and loose nut repository.
The police are stretched too thin and have to concentrate their efforts on herding people out of the area after the clubs and bars close. Can’t have people sticking around to spend more money and pump up the downtown economy after hours, you know. Shows you how smart they are. They’ll ignore the money changing hands on Fountain Alley, which generates no tax revenue, but they’ll squelch the spending by responsible parties that helps to pay their salaries. Is there any such thing as a cop who isn’t completely misguided or who doesn’t have an attitude problem? And they’re never there when you actually need them.
John:
All kidding aside, the business of scent is BIG business. In the rental housing industry, some of the corporate entities hire scent consultants to create a mental or psychological effect on potential residents. Don’t take my word for it, go ahead and “Yahoo” the topic and see what comes up. (Side note: Yes, I just used Yahoo as a verb instead of that other company starting with a G)
Retail businesses also have targeted scent as one of the new ways to attract and create ideal “buy zones” in their stores.
Anything the City can do to eliminate the Alviso aroma is welcome news to my snout.
Starbucks uses “coffeelike” scents in their stores as well (according to the CEO’s book).
Anything would be better then the smell around the VTA office on 1st and Clara!
Speaking of VTA—pretty good deal for the guy from SF Muni. He comes to a smaller agency with smaller ridership and makes more money. Cool.
#5 Agreed – the smell of millions of decomposing tax dollars is truly wicked.
Mark T-
I think the cops do a great job downtown. We need more mounted units and cops on bikes to combat the proliferation of nightclubs.
Its the tale of two cities, downtown.
One can spend a great night, enjoying a dinner at one of the fabulous restaurants and then walk to a show…when the show lets out, these patrons are dumped onto the streets with the drunken mobs of clubbers, walking around like a scene out of Night of the Living Dead, lookin’ to do damage to persons and propery.
It’s too bad.
Maybe we could pump in the smell of “someone who cares about the city rather than his own political gain” into Gonzales new office atop the tower of the new city hall. That is what we get for electing someone who lived in Sunnyvale until he had to move to SJ to run for office!
Snapshots: Downtown LA in 1986
It was a growing area with May(Macy’s), Bullucks, 2 shopping malls, and a market produce center. Cranes for highrises dotted the area, and some highrise housing were being built in downtown LA. What really made that area happening were several clubs as followed: Vertigo and Stock Exhange. All the most chic and drop dead beautiful girls frequent the clubs in the middle of the rundown area Thurs-Saturday. They came from the nearby beaches, Newport, Malibu, Westlake Village, West LA, Texas, Virginia, Beverly Hills, Hollywood, Orange county inland area and Europe. New York models frequented those, too. It(downtown) was a sense of place, albeit it was not a truly vibrant downtown, but nevertheless, exciting because there were always surprises in the area. There were a lot of diversity in downtown where Latinos shop and dine on Broadway and in the Market place. White collar people would work in Bunker Hill section of downtown. By most account, it was a thriving area, but downtown LA lost its way by 1990 and hit the skid: very sad. For awhile, most people avoided it thoughout the 1990s. Downtown is slowly coming back. San Jose, on the other hand, is decling. Right now, downtown SJ is worst than LA’s low point. It’s a disaster, and the politicians of San Jose are really screwing it up with no housing. Sj never had the momentum LA had in 1980s and declining on top of that. The car is bad and return it for a refund, please.
San Jose is really no different than LA. Just
– sub hi-tech industry for hollywood
– sub geeks for models and actors
– sub suburbs for beaches
and there you have it. Simple really.
San Jose + Hollywood + Models + Actors + Beaches = LA
I think we can all agree that we have a lemon downtown. The trick for SJ is to figure out a way to make ‘lemonade’ without breaking the financial backs of our already overtaxed citizens.
Hey No. 4, stop your stinking criticism of Alviso. You downtown elites, with your noses in the air, can’t get a whiff of San Jose’s part of the Bay because it’s not within walking distance of downtown. Try some fresh air in our wonderfully odorous Alviso.
The only reason downtown stinks is because of the lobbists that run the city. The way the Mayor runs this city and the smell will be moving closer, it will now be on 4th street.
I, for one, happen to enjoy the fetid stench of the bum-piss which permeates the doorways along San Jose’s side streets. And I am not talking the run of the mill Sunday AM post-bachelor party detritus. I am talking about the stench of a week-long bender, the kind only a monthly public assistance check and a lack of drive can subsidize. It is that unique scent void of any discernable food or nutrient intake. Call me zany…
What an idea! Scents for change. That could be your slogan when you decide to run for office John.
Love the idea that a “scent” could help to clean up a downtown area…maybe Santa Cruz could use some “sense” to help with the big homeless problem!
George, if a portion of those drunken partiers spilling out of the clubs are bent on causing trouble or property damage then yes, the police have a reason to be there. But everything I’ve read points the finger at the police for harrassing people whose only intent is to get home safely after a night of clubbing. If there are losers out there getting drunk and then looking to raise hell, then more power to the cops to discourage them from bringing that low life behavior downtown.
Hey, WhoopAss:
Can we order up a can for the shooting gallery known as St. James Park? What’s the link?
JMO
Yo, Mark T.
I suppose it would be politcally incorrect to say that I for one have no sympathy for the boom-boom/chinga-chinga car stereo crowd of rowdies from other parts of town (i.e. east of 101) who descend on downtown on weekend nights which results in keeping many big spenders out of downtown.
The cops herd them out of downtown much to the chagrin of the bleeding hearts. Unfortunately, they are too late—it would be better for downtown if they were turned away at the gate, so to speak. Yeah, I know, they have “rights”. By the time 2:00 a.m. rolls around, the damage is done.
Hey, the cops under MacNamara got rid of the hookers of all genders/preferences in what we now call SoFA, and business went up. Let’s do the same with the boom box set that cruises Santa Clara Street at night , and revitalize that area as well.
John Michael O’Connor
Yo, SJ Downtowner:
It’ll take a lot more than an olfactory stimulus to get Gonzo to care about anything other than his next political sinecure.
JMO