Monday, April 6, 2015

The residue of "vibrancy"

From the Inbox:
These folks and others downtown profit greatly from outdoor dining on city sidewalks. Why don't they bear some responsibility for keeping them clean?

34 comments:

  1. I agree. They should bear some responsibility for cleaning up the messes left by their customers. What would they do at home? Have dinner and leave everything left undone? I think not.

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  2. That's just personal responsibility. I clean up in front of my house, and that's not my job. People have lost the social contract on a lot of this stuff.....

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  3. Bottom line is that people don't care. There will always be some fool to come and clean it up.

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  4. Better scrub it in the rain tomorrow. Use a hose, go to water jail.

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  5. use the varmin puke and pee anyday of the week. No water needed.

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  6. It should not be lost on the city that sights like this can have a significant impact on the types of businesses we can expect to attract to our downtown. Also, it makes it much more difficult to get behind something like the Leucadia Streetscape if this is what we can expect on the part of the businesses and city in terms of stewardship.

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  7. A little less honey on those buns, please...

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  8. It's all about money. These businesses will not shell out a penny more than they have to. You'd think though that a disgusting entryway would make someone think twice about entering the premises, especially a food establishment. Doesn't say much for their housekeeping, but speaks volumes about the lack of cleanliness and quality.

    Penny wise and pound foolish.

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  9. That picture isn't public right-of-way. It's the entry to the business which would be their property. That isn't to say that it shouldn't be kept clean but it isn't the sidewalk.

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  10. I would add that those tiles have looked like that for a longtime in Downtown Encinitas. I'm not saying where, but it's a prominent spot. It's called a power washer. However, with the drought, you probably have to do some scrubbing.

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  11. It comes down to pride of ownership, which applies to non-owner employees too. I've seen some place in the world where first thing in the morning, sidewalks are swept, hosed down, flowers are watered, etc. I bet there are places like that here too, but clearly not the place pictured.

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  12. Instead of a bell announcing the entry of a customer, you hear the soles of their shoes sticking to the tiles.

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  13. Clearly you yahoos know nothing about the laws of the land. The EPA made it ILLEGAL to power wash a side walk UNLESS you are vacuuming the residue water and waste. NO water, NOOOO water is allowed to flow into the street unless it flows from a NATURAL source like the rain. This is why the Oceanside pier looks like shit. They can't power wash the bird shit off the pier... It's ok for a bird to shit over the ocean but if you want to wash bird shit off the pier that's against the law.
    Who to blame?? Bay Keeper, Surfrider and all those Environazi lawyers. You might know a name or two from this blog.....

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    1. I used to see them doing it at a well known take out eatery every morning, but I believe the city nailed them for that and for emptying their grease in the storm drain.

      -MGJ

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    2. Maybe they could use someone like this who appears to be able to legally power wash a sidewalk. I know nothing about this company and picked them at random only to show that it is possible to power wash sidewalks under today's rules.

      From their website:

      "At San Diego Power Clean, Inc. we use only state of the art pressure washing and steam cleaning equipment ... We are fully insured and use the most environmentally safe pressure washing methods and practices in accordance with the San Diego Storm Water Management Program and all EPA regulations."

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  14. Agree, 10:31. A water shortage caused by drought and exacerbated by the insatiable building industry. Streetscape should incorporate cisterns on every block to reuse rainwater for a reserve of landscape irrigation and so should all new development. It's like gold flushing to the ocean every time it rains in Encinitas when its not retained.

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  15. What a joke that the state would penalize Encinitas for not building 2300 more homes and at the same time bitch about water consumption. Who's minding the store?

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    1. Idiots with special interest money sticking out of their pockets.

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  16. 80% of water use is ag.

    We should all have grey water systems and rain cisterns. Outdoor watering and toilet tanks should use those sources as primary.

    Also, water softener recharging uses a lot of water and pumps salt brine into the sewage system, which harms the usefulness of recycled purple pipe water. I wonder if the water district could more efficiently soften water centrally, and shunt off the brine to direct ocean discharge. This would make purple pipe water more attractive. I could imagine a future where your sprinkler system has a trunk line to the curb, where you could pay for a tank truck of recycled water to hook up a couple of times a week. If the drought continues, it may eventually be price competitive with potable from the main.

    Anyway, residential is a small part of the problem. Besides, denser development uses less water (less irrigation). The real problem is thirsty low-value crops that should be banned temporarily in CA, like rice and alfalfa.

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    1. Go tell the farmers whose lives depend on these crops all about your cockamamie idea.

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    2. You defend flooding fields to grow rice during this drought? Either they stop it now, or in a year, when we run out of water. Either way, they are going to stop. The only question is how much more water we are going to waste along the way, making the crisis worse.

      Does it suck? Sure. Did the dust bowl suck? You bet. Did it suck for the Anasazi people when sustained drought in the Southwest wiped out an entire civilization? Yes. It makes no sense to bemoan what we cannot control (precipitation). All we can do is change waste ful practices to buy time.

      If you think giant evaporation ponds in a desert to grow rice makes sense right now, then I would love to hear your ideas.

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    3. You get this outraged at unfettered construction? You calling for a building moratorium, too? I hope so.

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    4. I do. building moratorium for sure

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    5. 6:21, 5:14 here. Yes. A moratorium on building is a good idea. But that can't be done at the local level. I would support Jerry Brown making it statewide, as the drought is statewide. Doing it locally wouldn't do anything, water wise. If people moved to Vista or Carlsbad instead of Encinitas, they would still use water from the same sources.

      It is now believed that the drought that wiped out the Anasazi culture lasted 300 years. Our alarm bells are starting to ring after 4. Yikes.

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    6. We are all able to live here because of various water projects both local and regional. San Diego is a semi-arid region and the coastal area has minimal ground water. Local greenery is due to irrigation. If weather patterns continue like the past few years, we are all going to have to make changes.

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  17. 3:26 PM
    Are you out of your frigging mind saying denser development uses less water?

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    1. No question.

      Water consumption per person is lower at Pacific station than your house or mine.

      Assuming they shower, flush, and wash dishes and clothes the same way we do, but they don't water a lawn, garden, trees or a pool like I do. Just over 50% of residential water use is outdoor irrigation. High density developments have much less of that relative to the number of people.

      There are other valid reasons to dislike density (traffic, parking, architectural bulk, view blocking, lack of true affordability, etc), but water efficiency isn't one of them.

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    2. Landscape watering is a huge % of daily water use. Let those lawns go brown, people...

      -MGJ

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  18. There is NO water shortage. Ask why the council installed 7 acres of grass??

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  19. enact a building moratorium today. No meters for any permits until after the drought including those under construction today.

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    1. Somehow I doubt your suggestion is based on the drought. More like an excuse to stop construction if only for a little while.

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    2. I'll take it.

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  20. I'll take it too.

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