Taste of Lagun
Were you among the crowd of smart or lucky folks who attended last week’s Taste of Laguna, held at the festival grounds? There must have been over a thousand of your neighbors and friends who made it. If you weren’t there, you really missed it.
There were lots of establishments handing out for free food they usually charge an arm and a leg for. That’s right, Laguna’s restaurants were handing out delicious food for free. In doing so, they showed their hand and revealed the true nature the gift of being a tourist town can be.
One attendee consumed over a dozen of Nick’s french dip sandwiches, while another stuffed themselves with pavlova from Sapphire. These two references aren’t intended to slight the others. All the food was wonderful. Every business participant really stepped up their game. They showed us what they are capable of when they aren’t being squeezed by big overhead—this food didn’t just fall out of the back of the Sysco truck.
We may have a lot more restaurants in our future when the new parking regulations are adopted. The City is moving ahead with downtown parking regulations which will make no distinction for what type of business is being conducted.
This regulatory change is based on a study of parking and traffic downtown which asserted Laguna has a surplus of parking spaces in the downtown area…if you don’t count beach parking and festival parking. That’s only a problem for a small part of the year, right?
In a move touted to assist our floundering retail sector, we are making the parking requirements for bars and restaurants the same as for a Rolex watch store. Has anyone seen folks packed into the expensive watch store like they’re packed into the Mar Bar on biker beer day?
Brick and mortar retail is on the wane in America. The most recent employment report showed we now have the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years. While at the same time, employment in the retail sector continues to shrink. Over 200,000 retail jobs have been lost in the past few years. Americans used to shop for recreation. It’s not like that anymore. Now we drink and eat out for our recreational experience.
What would you open—a retail shop almost guaranteed to fail, or a bar almost guaranteed to succeed? We’re about to see if we’ve really got that surplus parking. It would have been nice if this entire parking proposal had been vetted by the Parking Traffic and Circulation Committee, who’s job these matters are.
J.J. Gasparotti moved to Laguna Beach with his family when he was 11 years old. He has loved it ever since.
