This past week, Q-line asked:
City Hall recently created a Garden Sharing Registry that seeks to pair homeowners with extra land with gardeners who need a place to do their thing. Would you be interested in either sharing your land or lending your expertise to till the Santa Monica soil?
Here are your responses:
“Yes, I’m all in favor of the Garden Sharing Registry. In fact, I live over on Exposition and across the street over there at the trailer park that the city owns, there is some vacant land that is perfect for growing vegetables, fruits, and other items. This would be perfect because the city owns it and it’s close by.”
“In theory, I think the idea of sharing gardens is excellent. But I do believe it could end up with lots of problems such as noise, littering and possibly theft. I think everybody on both sides should think it over and be very, very careful.”
“It sounds like a good idea as long as somebody doesn’t decide to grow marijuana in your yard.”
“I do not have any land to share nor do I have any expertise in farming. As a youth during WW II, I slaved over a multi-acre patch of bell peppers and celery near the corner of Jefferson and Lincoln boulevards near Playa del Rey and did not like it … . Still I am curious where this extra land will be for gardening when one considers that the Bay Area between Palos Verdes and Malibu is the most over-built and congested area seemingly in the world. Still, again, everything looks over-built and congested to me. When I grew up in Manhattan Beach, the city had only 1,400 residents. I must admit we had a cantaloupe and tomato patch in the backyard.”
Smoking overflow<p>
Last past week, Q-line asked:
A Rent Control Board member is supporting a ban on smoking in all apartments in Santa Monica. He plans to send the idea on to the City Council. Would you support an apartment smoking ban or do you think it goes too far?
Here are your responses that didn’t make it:
“According to the Rent Control Board, their purpose is to control rent. What does smoking in an apartment have to do with the rate of rent or the control of rent? Isn’t that rather a health department issue? So, perhaps if the Rent Control Board took care of rent control and didn’t busy-body in areas where they have no business, then, perhaps there would be better politics, better relations, better business and less waste. But they don’t have any business telling people that they can or can’t smoke in their apartments. And I am a non-smoker.”
“I have never smoked in my life. I think that it is absolutely ludicrous and ridiculous to make a law like that because where does it start and where does it end? Why is everyone trying to take every right that we have in Santa Monica away from us. There is nothing but cameras everywhere. What is this world coming to? Has everyone lost their minds?”
“Nothing more neighborly than suing your neighbor, but why stop at smoking? Can I sue my neighbor if they make smelly food? I’d really like to sue the neighbor that listens to bad music. I though Mr. Kronovet was a Republican, and Republicans stood for limited government. Oh that’s right, limited government unless they want to tell you what to do in the privacy of your own home.”
“I think that it is totally ridiculous. It has gotten completely out of hand, that you are not able to smoke in your own apartment. Totally taking away our rights there. That’s like saying there’s no cooking allowed in your apartment building.”
“I do not see it as a ban on smoking, I see it as a ban on those who smoke passing on their death wish in the form of deadly secondhand smoke to non-smokers. Former President James Earl Carter and Surgeon General C. Everett Koop mentioned loudly during their tenure in office that 500,000 Americans die annually in the United States due to the residual effects of smoking tobacco in the form of cigarettes. Trust me folks, it is not a pleasant death. It is a death that renders a strong, 200-pound man to a 98-pound weakling, hacking, coughing, and gagging for one final breath. Trust me folks, cigarettes are bad news … . I subscribe 100 percent to a ban on smoking cigarettes, in, on, or around residential apartment buildings.”
