Why Local Businesses Put Up a Sign Saying Santa Monica Is Not Safe? | John Alle

Santa Monica is interesting. When it was developed, it was developed beautiful neighborhoods all over. You've got the Wilshire Montana area, you have the Sunset Park area, the Ocean Park area. Can you tell us what is it like? Now the residents are seeing it for themselves. Homeless in the alleys, they're seeing dumpster fires, individuals defecating, shooting up heroin, crystal meth. Our city workers are being attacked, stabbed. Safety is an issue we hear all the time. Can you paint a picture of what it is like for you guys? People think about the routes they're going to take to the market. They think about what time of the day they're going to the market. Some people will not go to the store in Santa Monica. Everyone's feeling it. My guest today is John Alley, real estate owner and co-founder of the Santa Monica Coalition. Today he's going to explain why this coalition exists and why the business owners in Santa Monica decided to put up a sign saying Santa Monica is not safe. When I see corruption and I see lies, which is what we have in Santa Monica, it has to be pointed out. I can't ignore it. I'm Siamak Karami. Welcome to California Insider. John, it's great to have you on. Welcome. It's an honor to be sitting here with you. Well, thank you. Thank you. Very excited to have you. We want to talk to you about Santa Monica. You're part of the coalition. You guys have put this sign up, big sign up in Santa Monica saying Santa Monica is not safe. You're also a business owner there. There's a number of business owners involved in this initiative. Can you tell us why you guys are doing it and what's going on in Santa Monica? Sure. Personally, I'm a real estate asset manager. I manage about 700,000 feet of space in L.A. County, just in L.A. County. I see what's going on. A lot of office space, right? Office space, retail. And commercial and residential. I saw that Santa Monica was underperforming. Usually, that's a sign that something's going wrong with the social economic fabric of the city. That sign was put up by the Santa Monica Coalition, which is a group of business owners and now majority residents, over 5,000 in number. We were looking for a location. We were thinking of a billboard at the airport. We were thinking of a newspaper ad. My building was empty. It's one of 50 to 55 percent of buildings on the Third Street Promenade, which are vacant. My windows were being smashed every 60 days. That was costing money. It was being destroyed. I said, well, I have to barricade it. Let's use the building. I offered the building to the coalition. The coalition accepted it. It was met with overwhelming support. There were a few people that didn't like it because they felt it would hurt the businesses. We felt as a coalition, we discussed it at length, we felt that it's better to deal with the situation for the city leaders to say, hey, we've got a problem. Let's not sugarcoat it. Let's not say we have a great retail component going on right now. We don't. Sales are down. Vacancy is up. Crime is up. Drug use is up. Open drug use on the sidewalks, in the water fountains, behind the buildings, in the parks. Let's deal with it. Let's call attention to it. The other reason we did it is the city was not listening to us. The city leaders just did not listen. They didn't want to hear about it. Until we showed them photos and short video clips of what was happening, did they pay attention? Some of them told me they had never come to the Promenade or downtown for months. They didn't want to come. We had one mayor that went to one of the parks. She would only go with a police contingent. That's how unsafe it is. We've continued to document it. We've continued to show that the private security, the ambassador groups that we have aren't working. They're unarmed. They're being attacked. Our city workers are being attacked, stabbed. We have a police department that's not funded and not staffed to where it should be, which is between 250 to 280 sworn officers, according to our chief. We're way below 200. Can you paint a picture for people that don't know what's going on in Santa Monica? Can you paint a picture of what it is like for you guys? Sure. Santa Monica is a city of 8.3 square miles, about 94,000 residents. It's a small city relatively compared to the other 88 cities of LA County, but it has a lot of notoriety. When people from other states throughout the country, throughout the world think of Southern California, Santa Monica comes. The iconic places. You think of the Third Street Promenade. You think of the pier, just like you would the Hollywood sign. It's gotten to a point now after two years that the hotel owners, the general managers are concerned. The restaurants are concerned. It's affecting their bottom line, and they're appealing to the city council to do something. It's a law enforcement issue. Right now in Santa Monica, we have a drug problem, and we have a mental health problem, and that is fueling the homeless problem. Unfortunately, we've surpassed San Francisco with more homeless per square mile, and that's not a great thing to have on your record. That's how bad it is in Santa Monica. Now, what is it like for average people? What happens when you say you have a drug problem, you have a mental illness problem? How does that manifest? I left a city meeting three weeks ago as an example, and one of our council women was there and asked if I would walk her to her car in one of the municipal parking garages. I said, of course. She was in front. I was in the back. She said, where are you? She called me. She texted me. I said, I'm in the back waiting for you. Are you coming down? She said, I'm in front. I'm being hassled. I walked her to her car. She was frightened, and it was just dusk. In the alleyways that lead to the garages behind the buildings and in front of the buildings are individuals defecating, shooting up heroin, crystal meth. You can see anything, and you can buy anything in downtown Santa Monica and in the alleys of the residential areas for the first time in a year. It's reached inland further east where the residential is and in the parks, and that's fueled by a program that was started by the county with the knowledge of the city managers that we've had and the mayors, and that's a county distribution of needles, syringes in the parks. It's the only open air needle distribution in the country. Interestingly, Governor Newsom voted against this last July. He vetoed a bill that we wanted to give needles across the state. Senator Wiener brought it, and he said he did not want it in the open air, and he did not want it publicly funded for quote-unquote unintended consequences, and we've seen the unintended consequences. We're seeing needles in the parks collected. We have ambassadors. We have city maintenance workers that have shown us what they're cleaning up at eight o'clock in the morning, piles of needles. We're seeing them in the streets, parking lots, sidewalks, not just in the parks. Whether or not that program works or not is a issue, but we want it out of the parks. The parks belong to the people. Interesting, of course, Santa Monica has 71% of its residents who live in apartments. That's a lot, and many of them, I think maybe half, have kids, and the parks are their backyards. They're treasured. I grew up playing in the parks where we had the problems, riding my bike to the tennis courts, riding home, walking, not ever looking over my shoulder. Today there are needles in the parks, and we have more and more transient addicts coming from all over the state, mostly from out of state. About 95% have been documented as being out of state, and we've documented it with our interviews as well, and the city and the county has as well when they check into shelters or for social services, but the parks are being taken away. Those are the backyards for the residents. The Third Street Promenade, ever since I was little, was called the living room for Santa Monica's residents. That's been taken away, so it's chaos. You mentioned the parks, so when you say residents may not feel very safe in the parks, can you paint a picture of what's going on in the parks? Is it during the day that people are doing drugs there? Is it at night? Can you tell us what you see in the parks? Sure. Most of the activity is taking place during the day, in the children's playgrounds, on benches, in the full view of ambassadors, in the full view of the police, so it's not written into the law. Nobody's being prosecuted for open use of drugs on our sidewalks and in our parks. I could take you into any park now or show you videos, and there'd be someone lighting up right now for doing a drug deal. The same meeting I was referring to two minutes ago, I walked down the center of the promenade, and it was about 7 30 at night. On one side, I saw a man masturbating. On the other side, I saw a man in seizure, and when I got finally to the end of the corner, I saw a drug deal. And in the meantime, we have restaurants struggling to stay open, the visitors and the diners watching all this go on. It's not helping. Business is down, and it's going to affect, and it is affecting, our sales tax revenues, which fund our streets, police, and fire. People that don't live there, do you think they are seeing this is happening in Santa Monica? Because we had some of the papers that came and actually said, after you guys put the sign up, they said that crime is not up, and these guys have put up this sign. What are your thoughts on that? They didn't distinguish which types of crimes. So robbery, theft, assaults are up. And unfortunately, if anthropology calls because they're being held up, and someone's in their store, and the people leave with goods, the thieves, and the police come, and they're not there, they can report an incident, but it doesn't go into the records. So those aren't being counted. I've had landlords call the police, and they're doing their best. Many of them are working overtime because they're overworked. There aren't enough sworn officers. But if one of the parties is not there, or given up, a report's not issued. So of course, the stats are going to go down. I'd like anybody on city council, or a mayor, or a city manager, to explain that to any of our retailers on the promenade who are experiencing 10 to 15, not smashing grabs, at night. We have those. I'm talking about walk-in, grab, and walk-out thefts. One woman yesterday in a major national store said, John, per week? No, one per hour. And I said, what do you do? And she said, well, we let it happen. The police can't get here soon enough. This episode is sponsored by Midas Gold Group. Saudi Arabia has said they're open to accepting currencies for oil, other than the dollar. Kissinger set up a petro-business agreement with the Saudis in the 1970s, enshrining the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency. This could be shattered. The grave consequences would be felt by every American. The Fed and politicians have abused the management of our monetary and fiscal policy. They have thrown an anchor on Americans with over $200 trillion in debt. That includes owed entitlements. We also have the BRICS countries forming an alliance to control commodities we need. Would they give them up for devalued dollars? Will they back their currencies with commodities while we back with nothing? Is this the de-dollarization by many countries in the world that could destroy our currency? 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So we've got that problem and we've got the problem of where do these employees park? The garages are unsafe. They're full of urine. They're full of feces. On many occasions there are rave parties that go on. The homeless stay in there because there are electrical outlets where they can charge their phones. A lot of the employees tell me I've gotten whacked over the head. I can't, I'm not going to walk two blocks to a parking garage. So that means their spouse or significant other needs to drop them off. Hiring employees is, hiring is difficult. Safety is an issue we hear all the time. I've had tenants move out because they can't find employees. So that's, that makes it really difficult. What about the tourists? Because you mentioned this is a city that has an international brand. Do you think that tourists are feeling that when they're coming to this city? Certainly they are. We spoke, a group of us spoke to all the general managers of hotels on Ocean Avenue which is right next to Palisades Park. The Bluffs, which everyone knows about, overlooks the ocean. Very scenic and very beautiful. A lot of the major hotels are there. The Fairmont, the Shore, numerous. They're feeling it. The general managers tell us that their reservations for three to five days, made in advance, are being cut short and canceled once the tourists come because they don't feel safe. And honestly, they're not safe. And they don't like what they see and smell. And they don't like walking past what they see on the street, which is very sad. People asleep, people on their own bodily fluids, people doing drugs, people that need mental health just carrying cast-iron pipes, hitting everything along the way. We see a lot of that. Last Sunday at nine o'clock, I was pulled over right by Santa Monica Place, which is a major mall right next to the promenade, which is significantly vacant as well. There is an individual with a cast-iron pipe hitting lights, hitting trucks. He's someone that needs help. We have a lot of people like that that need help. And the drugs are fueling the homelessness. That's why we need to invest in mental health facilities and sober-related programs, abstinence programs for drugs. We need to focus on that, more so than providing more housing. Santa Monica is interesting. When it was developed, it was developed beautiful neighborhoods all over. You've got the Wilshire, Montana area. You have the Sunset Park area, the Ocean Park area. And they all have alleys behind the streets, behind the homes. And now the residents are seeing it for themselves. They're seeing homeless in the alleys. They're seeing dumpster fires. I can't tell you how many videos I've received from residents, part of the showing me trash cans and dumpsters on fire from homeless. They're cooking drugs, cooking meth, or in there just to stay warm. But everyone's feeling it. And it's a matter of will from the city. The city leaders need to address this with more police. They need to take away from some of their other funding, maybe take away from free swim lessons for third graders, which has been discussed. Maybe take away from special funding for special ed schools, early childhood learning schools, and put it into law enforcement. Because the city's main goal should be to keep life, is life and property. And without safety, everything else doesn't matter. Everything else is secondary. We believe safety is a human right. The situation in Santa Monica has it changed the culture of the people in Santa Monica? Yes. Yes. People think about the routes they're going to take to the market. They think about what time of the day they're going to the market. Some people will not go to the store in Santa Monica. They'll go to the valley. Some people that work for the city have told me that. It's changed everyone's life. When you see the promenade, which used to be a bustling place, and it will be, we're going to have a comeback. We'll make sure of that. But when you see it now close at dusk, so during the winter at four o'clock, when it gets dark, and now at eight o'clock, the stores close, it's not a good sign. That's one thing that one notices. It's closed. Everything's closed. And that's when all the mayhem starts. We get three to five storefronts smashed for no reason every month. So you're seeing this trend in Santa Monica. Do you think things are headed to get worse? Or do you think they're staying the same? Or what are your thoughts on where is the city headed? I don't want to be a bearer of bad news, but because the city is not addressing it as they should, it will probably get worse. We've gone through two private security companies to patrol the garages, the alleyways, and the library. One failed miserably. Some are short-term contracts. So again, they're no-bid contracts. That's never a good thing. And they're not working. We finally have a plan in place for downtown for private security to work with and at the direction of the police department. The problem is the plan was changed. The private security is not going to be armed. So I can't tell you how many guns I've seen with homeless, and knives. But if the guards can't carry even mace for their own protection, and the city employees can't, they're in danger. Interestingly, the city is not funding this private security. The business owners are. We have to do something. We're spending it on useless ambassadors now, some of them that are being hurt. It's not working. Crime's going up. The more we spend, the more crime goes up, and the more homeless we have. So something's not right. But Santa Monica is becoming a city of concierge service. So they're not going to fund more officers. But if you want your security, hire a private security force. Yes, we'll have them under the direction of the police, but we're not funding it. That's not right. And I think we may be one of the only cities in L.A. County that operates that way, where the city wouldn't say, hey, let's do what we can to hire the police that the chief is asking for, 250 to 280. And let's be honest with the public. If we say we've got 201 officers, let's tell them that 15 are in training. They're not on the streets. Let's be honest. We want the city to admit there's a problem and to work with us. It's a unifying issue. It's not a left or a right issue. Crime and homelessness and the effects affect us all in a bad way. So it's something everyone can get together with. But the city hides it. Over Memorial Day, we had a couple of tragic incidents happen. And we begged the police to come out with a statement, because on social media, all sorts of statements were being made about what happened. Maybe it was fake. It was being made up. And I asked the chief, please make a statement. It's Memorial Day. Put people at ease. And this happened on Friday. What happened? There was an overdose and a death and other issues. The chief and the police never made a statement. Monday, Memorial Day, I think it was 1.15 or 2.15 in the afternoon, the city made a blank statement saying this had happened. It was being investigated. And the same thing happened two years ago. There was an attempted rape in one of our garages along the promenade and the Santa Monica Place shopping mall. It turned out it ended up to be a murder and a runover murder twice on Colorado Avenue, a block from the pier. And the city hid that until after the 4th of July. And our council members, some of them were livid. I remember calling up two of our council members and saying, why can't the police, why can't the city manager appear at the scene of the crime and say, look, we don't approve of this. Obviously, they don't. But we're on it. We're trying to make things happen. And we're investigating. Everyone's silent. The residents don't like that. They want to be told the truth. And if things aren't going well, they'll help the city leadership to make it better. But if they're told things are great and there isn't a problem and crime's not going up, they get mad. And that's why the Santa Monica Coalition exists. One of the reasons is they're upset that our city leaders aren't addressing, really, it's a humanitarian crisis. It's sad. It's on the street, people sick, physically sick, and mentally sick. And John, you're pretty vested in this city. Can you tell us why? You're involved in across LA County, and you see these problems in Santa Monica. And I'm sure this is not easy for you to be vocal and get in front of media and be heading this movement. No, it's not something I would rather be jogging or on the driving range at a golf course. But after the riots on May 31, 2020, I actually had to secure my building. It was destroyed. And it only, as of late, was put back together. And day by day, I saw what was happening at night and during the day. And it was awful. And those riots, which could have been easily prevented, there were peaceful protests. Protests were wonderful along Ocean Avenue. The trouble started when separate groups came and just tore apart our downtown. Longstanding restaurants on 4th Street, the 3rd Street Promenade. The city still doesn't say how many fires there were. There were three or four, but you don't hear about the fires. And that set me in motion. Then I realized we have a problem here. Then I realized the city, I spoke to my fellow owners on the Promenade. The city wasn't addressing the issue. They didn't care. They felt, well, insurance will rebuild the buildings for you. Well, insurance doesn't do that. It helps, but it doesn't help. It doesn't do that. And it's been a long struggle ever since. And I've paid a heavy price, but I'm not going anywhere. I've made great friendships with people on the left. We have great discussions. I'm a moderate, and people on the right. Because this is a unifying issue that everyone can get behind. Now, what keeps you going? I'm paying a big price financially, which I'm able to handle. And the coalition is behind this now, financially. We have people that are contributing as well. We formed a PAC, so we're financially secure. Time-wise, it's taking a lot out of me, and it's taking away a lot of time from my business. But it's something that needs to be dealt with because it's happening to all of us. We're all people. We all have souls. We have to look after each other. And when I see corruption and I see lies, which is what we have in Santa Monica, it has to be pointed out. I can't ignore it, and the coalition doesn't want to ignore it. So that keeps us going. We'll never correct it, and we're not going to spend our time asking the council to do this or that. We're powerful enough now, as far as opinion and what we're suggesting, that the council members are coming to us and asking, what can we do? What do you think of this? And that's how it's all going to work. Santa Monica is a pretty open community, right? Is it a compassionate community? Is it losing that compassion after what you guys are going through now? It's not compassionate. We have a city council that's ignoring people on the streets. It's not helping them. It's not providing any services. That's not compassion. It's inhumane, and that's our goal as a coalition, to correct that. Leaving people on the streets, not having shelters open from 4 p.m. until 8 a.m. is not compassion. Allowing people to shoot up in broad daylight in the parks, that's not compassionate. Giving them needles just leads these poor people down into a dark hole of deeper trouble. And that's what's happening. That's why it's getting worse. The new figures have come out for homelessness. They've gone up tremendously, and yet we're spending more. The more we spend, the worse it gets. It's not a good sign. John, some people might say that your coalition is not compassionate towards the homeless. What are your thoughts on that? Just the opposite. We've never mentioned homelessness in any of our literature. We're trying to help the homeless. We're trying to get them off the streets. We created the coalition to help the city and encourage the city to address the homeless issue, to show compassion, to help people off the streets, not leave them on the streets, not leave them on the sidewalks, not the streets, the sidewalks, to die of hypothermia during the rain, to have tents that are soaked, have women not be able to stay in tents, because if they're in tents, they're more danger, they're attacked. That's not compassion. Our effort is unifying. Left or right, it's not red or blue. It's for everyone. We're reaching residents and business owners that have diverse political opinions on every other topic of politics, but they agree that a solution is needed. We're welcoming their ideas. It needs discussion, and someone may have a great idea. We might think we have a great idea, but we need to discuss it, and until we sit down and discuss it and come up with solutions and not just think that we can spend our way out of this, we won't solve it. This is something that can bring the community together, and that's what we're trying to do, one voter at a time, and we're seeing it block by block in the residential neighborhoods. We're seeing neighbors ask, how do I walk block by block? What kind of literature can I give out? What can I say? And it's working block by block. It's happening, and the city council is seeing that. The city manager is seeing that, and they're paying attention, so it's going to change. John, so you got active in Santa Monica, and it seems like you're meeting a lot of the community members and people. Do you think through this process, this community will become closer to each other? It seems like people are working together on this mission. It already has. I've met so many good people, so many people on different commissions, library commission, disabled people. Meeting people in the community that you pass every day through an issue is wonderful, and everyone wants to make something happen for the better. They want to talk. They want to offer their solutions, and that's good. That's what makes the community. That's what makes the city so special. It's a great community. We just have to solve this problem, and the more opinions, the better. Everyone has an opinion. We have to listen. We can't raise our voices, and if we listen, we can come up with the right ideas. You've lived in L.A. for all your life, right? You grew up in L.A.? All my life. I've lived within a mile of Santa Monica all my life. If you were in charge of everything tomorrow, if the city council tell you, John, you've done a fantastic job with this coalition. Now you're in charge. You fix this city. What would you do? Well, the first thing I would do is utilize one tool in one group that's already had great success, and that's the Sheriff's Department as a host team. It's led by Captain Jeff Dietrich. It's world-renowned. There's never been an arrest, never been a lawsuit, never been force-used. Law enforcement, whether it's police, Santa Monica police, or outside groups, are the first interaction with people on drugs, committing crime, or in need of medical help, mentally ill. They're able to interact and suggest places for these people to go first. They're the first responders. But the host team is open to all cities, and they don't approach their job as law enforcement. They work with the providers nearby. They find homes. They come back over and over. They ask questions, and it's a proven program that's worked. They cleaned up Venice Beach. They cleaned up Olvera Street. Of course, it needs continued return visits, but they've helped quite a bit, and this program exists within the Sheriff's Department, and it's a complete success. Capitals in Europe have called on this host team, and it would work perfectly in Santa Monica. We're hoping that Santa Monica utilizes their experience and doesn't start over trying to fund groups, new groups. This is something we have in hand, and I hope the Santa Monica City Council considers it. Do you think if this group comes in, the host group, and cleans up, helps the homeless people, the drug addicts or the mentally ill to get housing or get services, do you think that's going to save Santa Monica? Sure. They connect them to services. They connect them to family, and they connect them to mental health services, and that's what they need, and they do it in a compassionate manner. I've seen it firsthand. Again, when you can do something like that and approach this complex, violent, criminal activity and not ever have an arrest and not use force, I think that's pretty good. John Alley, co-founder of Santa Monica Coalition, it was great to have you on. Thank you for having me. I invite people to visit our website, thesantamonicacoalition.org, and we have a daily Instagram page, at Santa Monica Coalition, which gives 15-second highlights of what's happening as far as the activity on the streets, our interaction with drug addicts, our interaction with people that have just slept all night in a bank lobby. Fascinating and very educational for me and our team. We've got a great team that's working on so that comes out every day, every morning, and the reaction has been very positive. Everything we can do to make change. We're expanding now. We've got neighborhood groups that we're forming that are going door-to-door, block-to-block, at markets to raise awareness, and with that is going to come change. We look forward to hearing good news from Santa Monica. I hope so. Sooner rather than later. If you like the show and our content, you should go to InsiderCA.com and sign up to our newsletter because we never know what can happen with social media and other platforms in terms of distributing our content. If you'd like to come on the show and be an insider, you can reach out to us at Again, it's We'd love to have you on the show to tell us what's going on in your field in California. Thank you for watching.