Enforce ALL ordinances, please!
Editor:
Donald Murchie's letter (May 20-21) makes some very good points. But the ordinance outlawing leaf blowers is only one of many which the city seems to show very little interest in enforcing.
Many cities have nicknames; "The Windy City" for Chicago, "Big Apple" for New York, "The Eternal City" for Rome, and so on.
I've long thought that Santa Monica's should be "The City of Unenforced Ordinances." Sure, the leaf blower ordinance seems not to be enforced very vigorously. But the number of times I've seen pedestrians jaywalking, or cars failing to yield to pedestrians who have the right of way, or people smoking at bus stops, or a bicyclist riding on a sidewalk or blowing through a stop sign is astronomical. And I don't think I've ever seen any of these people cited, even on the occasions when it happened in plain view of a police officer. And there are lots of
other rarely-enforced ordinances in addition to the ones I've listed.
With budget deficits looming, wouldn't it make sense to issue as many citations as possible to help bring a bit more cash into the city coffers? And at the same time, it would help make the city a more pleasant environment for nearly all of us (for everyone but the scofflaws, in other words).
Mark Bartelt
Santa Monica
