With regard to the letter to the editor by Todd Strong Jr. (“OB Town Council does not speak for all residents,” Jan. 10 edition, page 6), I feel compelled to write not in defense of the Town Council but in opposition of Mr. Strong’s characterization of them and, more important, the community itself. I comment as someone who has lived in Ocean Beach since 1962 (and at my current address for over 20 years), has no affiliation with the Town Council whatsoever and dearly loves this community,
Mr. Strong refers to the Town Council as a “boorish group of haters” who “desperately wish OB wasn’t family friendly” and goes on to suggest that they “prefer crime” and “welcome transients and their entourage of drugs, theft and illegal behavior.” Though these comments do reflect his frustration, they are ridiculous, careless and slanderous. Of course they don’t prefer crime or wish that OB wasn’t family friendly. And who really comes off as a “boorish hater”?
Mr. Strong goes on to insinuate that the Town Councilmembers were the organizers of protests against Starbucks and Wings. I hate to inform him that it was regular residents of this community that organized and voiced their opposition to their three-block-long business district being infiltrated by chain businesses that have little interest in the community, save lining their pockets: regular folks that happen to disagree with him [Strong].
Mr. Strong also suggests that [the Town Council’s] opposition to the alcohol ban is to “enjoin [their] landlord from raising the rent on the dilapidated studio apartment that [they] share with three others.” Does Mr. Strong really think this? His rantings could be just his way of exclaiming that, without an alcohol ban, he thinks Ocean Beach is going to hell in a handbasket. Why doesn’t he just say that?
I am a non-drinker who lives in lower Ocean Beach. I go to the beach often (and every day from late spring through late fall). If anyone were to witness alcohol-fueled hell, it would be someone such as myself. I’ve seen no alarming increase in the amount of drinking and, while I’ve seen a few knuckleheads over the years, none with the hysterical rantings of someone who doesn’t get their way. I oppose the alcohol ban. Like Mayor Sanders, I think someone should be able to “watch a sunset with a little wine.”
I suggest Mr. Strong look for Pleasantville in another area of the city. He clearly doesn’t like Ocean Beach as it is and has been for the past 40 years. He sounds like someone concerned with his property value more that the community itself. I’m reminded of a conversation I had with three other neighbors, all of them homeowners, including one relatively new resident. The newer resident complained about the stink that he periodically smelled coming into OB, saying that the city should do something about the constant sewage spills. He was thusly informed that the smell was, in fact, kelp rotting in the sun, and that he might as well get used to it.
Mr. Strong, we are Ocean Beach, as natural as rotting kelp. Get used to it.