This past weekend, I took a trip with some girlfriends to the one and only “Sin City.” After getting up from a blackjack table, thinking about the $200 I essentially spent on three drinks, I had a few thoughts about if San Jose was more like Las Vegas.
No Clocks
Forget staggered closings—just abolish clocks in San Jose altogether! It seems to work for the people in Vegas. People don’t even know when it’s 2 a.m. so they don’t bother the cops. (Come to think of it, I never saw one cop when I was there. They must use them to fight real crime. What a concept.)
Franchise Bay 101 Card Clubs
Maybe City Hall should encourage people to drink and gamble all day and night by opening a Bay 101 on each city block. Then troublemakers would pass out before they could make it to heckle women on Santa Clara Street. Better yet, they could build a high-rise casino for Mardi Gras celebrations. If people are kept inside, they can’t cause trouble on the streets!
Cover Charges
Every club in Vegas, regardless of the time, charges at least $20 for cover. Maybe San Jose clubs should charge a small payment or a $100 membership to weed out some of the undesirable characters that show up.
Late Night Buffets
Being in Las Vegas and being able to order French toast or a cheeseburger at 4 a.m. at any coffee shop or buffet made me long for a place that is brave enough to offer late-night food in San Jose. Maybe Chuck Reed can put 24-hour buffets on the top of the to-do list for the Redevelopment Agency. Subsidize ‘em—we get hungry late at night!
In Vegas you can walk down the street with your child, your spouse, your friends or your coworkers and have the option to see a show, ride a roller coaster, gamble, eat anytime in a nice restaurant, dance (or watch someone dance), play cards and shop. (The only thing I am glad we CAN’T do is smoke in public places.) Though I am being tongue-in-cheek, I really do believe we need to take a slice of the good things that Las Vegas (or any major city for that matter) has to offer and try to remember that deep down, people do want to be entertained. So let’s offer them a bit more.
This leaves me speechless, thankfully you did qualify that you were being tongue-in-cheek. However, you may have a point regarding the gradual closure of Bay 101 and Garden City. The city will be giving up at least $5M in annual taxes. Wonder where our leaders plan to come up with that amount. Of course, at the rate things are going around here, both sites will probably be turned into multiple living units by some developer.
Check it out single girl, look who else is comparing San Jose and Vegas……..
http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8784680
SG,
I realize your post is a bit of joke, but SJ is more you like Vegas than you think. When Mayor McE enacted the anti-skid row laws for downtown, he pushed the strip joints to the unincorporated area of Burbank, almost in unison Vegas pushing the strip joints off the strip.
SJ’s Burbank area is just as dangerous as Vega’s “West Fashion” district at night, especially considering the recent rise in armed robberies.
It is time that we reverse “rob peter to pay paul” redevelopment methodology we have in SJ, incorporation our county pockets, and clean up blight and crime caused by the tunnel vision downtown redevelopment.
Single Gal, why don’t you move to Vegas since it’s your kind of vibrant town?
Fed Up –
I’m not crazy, that’s why!
SG- After reading several of your posts, I tried to click on “About the Author,” to find out a little bit about you. It didn’t work. Am I doing something wrong?
Not to be rude or judgemental but, all your posts sound like you are very young, and inexperienced. I like your energy, but I’m a bit taken a back by the way you view the world, and it’s difficulties. I don’t think young people or their ideas are bad mind you, I’m just surprised at some of your columns, and there lack of world experience.
Great Economist article “Santana Row in San Jose is a shopping street with distinctive, French-accented architecture, art galleries, shops and pavement cafés, with some apartments mixed in. It is exactly the kind of urban environment that the downtown boosters say they want, but for two details. Santana Row is three miles from the city centre, and was built in 2002. This fake downtown, with ample parking and no homeless people, is doing so well that similar schemes are mooted elsewhere.”
Stop wasting money on downtown and ignore downtown business association’s demands for more millions because ” downtown is entitled”
Have late night clubs charge a security cover charge as Single Gal said to pay for more downtown security and police to “weed out some of the undesirable characters that show up.”
Spend San Jose taxes on projects that generate jobs and taxes – Coleman, Story and King, Tully Road, GE plant, The Alameda, Valley Fair and North San Jose
Single Gal, you’re not crazy because you realize that downtown San Jose is nice and attractive which Vegas’s downtown isn’t. You and I been around the country and realize San Jose is darn cool place!
Taxpayer, wonderful ideas.
But we have three camps in opposition to the common sense idea of building projects outside of Downtown: 1) developers who get mega-fat subsidies from the RDA; 2) folks who moved Downtown with a vision of it someday being a San Francisco, not to mention making a killing on their luxury condos; and 3) City politicians who have an inferiority complex and just can’t let a true market economy govern the outcome.
We’ll all need more than luck to overcome these Downtown champions.
Bridget –
I only wish to be as mature and worldly as you. Maybe what you are missing is an ability to sense sarcasm or humor.
Thanks for your tips! I am booking my trip around the world today!
Single Gal,
Whilst traveling, see if Oliverio and Denelle can join you. I think the three of you could benefit a lot from the rest of us, “mature, and worldy folks.”
Again, I’d like to know something about you. Everyone who writes for this blogg has something posted about who they are, and their qualifications. You don’t. Or is it that I am I missing the humor, and sarcasm of your unwillingness to reveal yourself to those of us you want to see you as credible?
Bridget #11,
You try to make it off as though you are credible as well. Why don’t you post your last name, place of work, job title etc. so we can see if you are credible.
#12-13- My first comments to Single Gal were in no way rude. Her remarks back to me were.
I think that both your comments to me are uncalled for, given that I wasn’t addressing you. Reminds me of a mob scene out of some bad B movie. Dog pile! Right out of Mayor Watch.
My understanding of posting on this blogg is that we be respectful, and have open, honest communication on our ideas, thoughts etc. Asking Singal Gal, the only author on this blogg a little bit about herself, her qualifications, etc., is in no way unreasonable.
#12 and #13 –
I fail to see where Bridget was rude. She expressed an opinion – even clarified that it was not said to offend (last time I checked, this board’s whole purpose was to express opinions), and asked to know more about Single Gal, since her “about the Author” doesn’t say anything.
Single Gal – You say Bridget should recognize sarcasm; Is it your practice to answer an honest question with sarcasm? Many of us would be interested in your answer to Bridget’s original question:
“SG- After reading several of your posts, I tried to click on “About the Author,” to find out a little bit about you. It didn’t work. Am I doing something wrong?”
Yeah Single Gal—you young unworldy whippersnapper. How DARE you write about your perspective on San Jose when it’s obvious you lack world experience (prostitution?) and you are not a cynical, condescending, patronizing, egotistic, lofty, lordly, patronizing (whoops, I already said that), smart ass, snobbish, snooty, supercilious, superior, uppish, uppity jerk like many of the rest of us on this board
BRIDGET