Management Company Tries to Stop Errant Losers From Entering
Following the City of San Jose’s example of protecting the public from rogue golf balls, Santana Row has decided to protect their “people” by installing security nets around their village in the hopes of keeping out any errant losers that happen to wander upon their property.
“Flakes, lowlifes and those making under $100,000 have slowly and methodically penetrated our hermetically sealed town,” said Santana Row spokesman Ray Whitebred. “We don’t dig it, hence the golf netting to keep the great unwashed at bay.”
They say the goal is not to discriminate, but rather to allow those with certain zip codes the right of entry while denying those that would feel more comfortable downtown.
“We need shoppers,” said Whitebred. “Those that can spend money in our retail stores—not just the riffraff and downtowners that come to party.”
Federal Realty says the problem stems from more downtown nightclubs closing, people having a couple of beers with nowhere to go, and deciding that it might be fun to try and get into Santana Row to hang out.
“We have had a lot of complaints from desirables about the ‘downtowners’ enjoying their new, clean, safe, retail-rich and manufactured downtown,” says Councilwoman Madison Nguyen, who has one of these net installations going up at Los Lagos Golf Course in her district. “The cost of putting up the net is just a fraction of the cost of losing customers because of errant assholes.”
You’re treading that ‘Onion’-like border between satire and reality where I can’t really tell the difference anymore. This is more plausible than I’d like to admit.
Here’s an excerpt from a leaked memo to the staff at Santana Row:
… furthermore, on the advise of counsel, staff will desist from using derogatory or hurtful terminology when referring to the “peripheral demographic” that inspired our most recent structural upgrade.
John,
If your column didn’t have so much truth to it, it would be funny. :-(
Nice post and soooooo true.
Here’s a way to develop downtown. Have the police treat Santana Row like they have treated the downtown nightlife the last 5 or 6 years.
Start by getting rid of the pay job officer security they let Santana Row have. Problems will increase at the bars and clubs of Santana Row. The police will blame the bars.
The police will then require aggressive crowd control and aggressive police tactics. They will also increase the fees to pay for all this.
The nice crowd will flee to downtown again.
The low life’s, who enjoy squaring off with the aggressive police presence will flock to Santana Row.
All of the places could start playing hyphie hip hop and serve $2 shots all night. All the stores could switch to lowlife and striper wanabee apparel.
The movie theatre could switch to 24 hour “ultimate fighting viewings”. The smaller kiosks could be made tattoo parlors.
Downtown could then have nice mix of restaurants, shops, bars and clubs that attract people of all ages!.
Thanks for the early morning chuckle.
On a serious note, it was refreshing to read you noticed the domino effect whenever a group, or groups of people have a superiority complex over other people.San Jose has been trying to homoginize downtown for decades only to be trumped by the forces of their own devise. As an example:
The city wants wealthy downtown shoppers, yet does not offer desireable shops.
The city wants to create a night life downtown, but does not want to deal with the drunk patrons a night life brings.
The city wants wealthy patrons to come downtown on public transit, but the only patrons that are willing to use public transit are those who cannot afford an SUV much less afford to shop at places like Pierre A La FuFu.
Never-the-less, our fair city continues on it’s quest to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, while our fair citizens and merchants continue to get shuffled around our city by the powers-that-be in hopes that some day a square peg will fit into a round hole.
#5—BOY, did you hit the nail on the head.
I hope with the “net” that one can still get a bus through? When I retire from 35 years of working downtown, I had planned to copy one of my hero’s tasks – Neil Cassidy who drove for Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. Free bus rides and tours for any downtown transient or homeless person who would like to see Satan Row. Hell, maybe even offer a ride back and $ 5 to anyone who could spend the day there.