Petty little Parlor games
I was intrigued by the lead story in the Sept. 21 edition of the Daily Press entitled, “Sports bar forced to scale back.” I read with growing disgust that the Planning Commission had economically carpet-bombed a popular Santa Monica sports restaurant, The Parlor, based upon the regurgitated urgings from a feverish few north o’ Wilshire neighbors. The restaurant’s owners, Ike Pyun and Silas Gaither, were ordered by the SM Planning Commie-Czars to cut their business venue by 52 percent as well as lower their valet fees to “compete with the city-owned parking lot” behind the restaurant.
Two questions should become grotesquely obvious to anyone with the relative intelligence of a paramecium: Isn’t it comforting to know that some city apparatchik can summarily cut a business’s potential income by 52 percent over an arcane technicality of a decades old expired parking variance? Please note that The Parlor now has the same bills to pay but with half the income. City Hall is capable of nuking tax-paying business owners by decree but still somehow seems incapable of sterilizing its streets of its more favored hobo population.
And since when is City Hall in the business of regulating competition against a private business to the city’s advantage?
To be completely unfair and unbalanced, please allow me to address the complaints about The Parlor’s operation. From the personal e-mails of the complainants that I’ve surreptitiously obtained, it is only a scant half baker’s dozen that have been economically truthful about “the noise” from the “frat rats” that patronize The Parlor.
Let me get this straight, the local hope-and-change Hottentots are complaining about the ambient noise from one bar? Citizens, I live on Main Street. I can step outside of my front door and walk (or crawl) 100 paces or less, to and from O’Brien’s, Library Ale House, Rick’s Tavern, The Fish Co., World Cafe and Circle Bar. Yes, it does get noisy sometimes. It’s called this stupid thing called “life.” Some of you north o’ Wilshire crybabies need to get one, too.
If you are looking for “sympathy,” you can find it in the dictionary somewhere between “suicide” and “syphilis.”
Is it an inconvenient truth that anyone clueless enough to live within a half block of one of the busiest boulevards since God said “Let there be a Miracle Mile” is a demonstrable dimwit? I have some enlightening advice, though. Get in your silly little pretentious Prius, drive to Walgreen’s at 20th and Wilshire and purchase earplugs. Duh. There’s this thing called “taking personal responsibility for one’s own choices, how bad they may be.” Check your morning mirror frequently for updates.
The “frat rats” that frequent The Parlor? My wife and I went in for dinner last Friday and the “frat rats” that I saw that night included Head Coach Black from the Santa Monica High School wrestling team as well as several Samohi employees and, gasp, teachers even! There was a fair smattering of the 50-something crowd, too. The local alumni from the University of Missouri were in attendance as well.
Funny, the patrons seemed more like college-educated, well-heeled professionals to me and not the “Animal House” as The Parlor has been portrayed by its neighbors. Sorry, but I just can’t visualize Coach Black competing with the 15th Street Full Monty Synchronized Urination Team as has been alleged by The Parlor’s pernicious persecutors.
Folks, the California unemployment rate is currently 12.2 percent. Meanwhile, the mere handful of north o’ Wilshire Puritans are in need of a serious soap opera ego-check to see if the faux-morality of their rent-controlled nighty-night time can be balanced against the sleeplessness of The Parlor’s staff who are faced with being improvidently parked in the unemployment line.
Ladies and gentlemen, The Parlor is a family-financed “mom-and-pop” operation and not some bank-funded chain store. Who would you rather support?
I’ve interviewed the owners. They are old enough to be my sons. Like my own son, Silas and Ike are enterprising, astute, energetic and all are on very important missions. My son Nathan’s mission is fighting the War on Terror against radical jihadis while Ike and Silas are fighting the War on the Recession against the Santa Monica Taliban yuppies of Apartment-istan.
It takes granite cojones the size of Mt. Rushmore to sally forth into the worst economic recession in American history and open a family business with investments solely based from their friends and family as Ike and Silas have done. Folks, pack their restaurant every night and join their fight against the recession!
I believe in their dream. It’s what makes America great.
Steve Breen believes in the evil rewards of beer, uh, bear market capitalism and is still “the best looking mailman at the U.S. Post Office.” He can be reached at dulcamarax@yahoo.com.
