Editor:
Thanks for Sandy Clair's letter regarding the doormen extorting money from cab drivers ("Cookie monsters return," Letters to the Editor, Dec. 5).
The letter also stated: "'What good is having a law on the books if it's not going to even be attempted to be enforced?"
Good statement. Sandy, this isn't the only law this city passed that they make no attempt whatsoever to enforce. The only conclusion I can make is that the City Council thinks it looks good passing these laws and then lets it go at that.
Here are a few laws that are totally ignored:
1. The no-smoking laws. The police won't even tell them to put it out if they see it, let alone enforce it by issuing a ticket. I'd really like to know how many tickets have been issued. No one can smoke within 20 feet of a bus stop or a business in Santa Monica. No smoking in parks or the pier. Yet we choke on it every day and thousands of cigarettes are swept daily into the ocean harming the creatures who live there.
2. Bike riders must obey all vehicle laws like stopping for red lights and stop signs. They do not. Bike riders are not to ride along the Third Street Promenade or on sidewalks. They do. The only time police will stop a sidewalk rider is if he or she looks suspicious and they want to search them for drugs or if they think the bike might be stolen. A bike rider almost slammed into me as I was crossing a street. The cars stopped at the stop sign. The bike rider did not. He was flying between cars and did not see me until he almost hit me. He screeched to a sliding stop just in time. I congratulated him as being the only bike rider who, as far as I knew, ever stopped at that particular stop sign.
3. The no-leaf blower law. This one finally got some attention after years of complaints and outcry. They still do it, but it is, finally after 10 years or so, under control.
So City Hall goes merrily on passing laws they really have no intention of enforcing or they would do so. And it is truly infuriating.
Sign me "tired of choking on the smoke from cigarettes and fumes from leaf blowers and diving for cover from speeding bikes."
Marilyn Brennan
Santa Monica
