Escondido council czars decree what businesses can stay

By: James L. Condomitti - For the North County Times | Tuesday, December 28, 2004 9:45 PM PST ∞

It's now decree. If an entrepreneur wishes to open a tattoo parlor on East Valley Parkway in Escondido, he or she is banned from doing so.

Tattoo parlors and other business ventures have been deemed "undesirable" along this thoroughfare. I am alarmed at the thought of czars ruling certain new businesses as desirable or undesirable.

The Escondido City Council and East Valley Association have approved an ordinance banning new business ventures deemed as "not desirable" ---- which includes thrift shops, liquor or discount stores, pawn shops, tattoo parlors, auto repair shops, car dealerships, check-cashing outlets and retail shops selling items at one price. "We have too many of these types of businesses concentrated along this boulevard" may summarize the bureaucratic, discriminatory doublespeak of those who aim to "raise the economic bar" and exhibit a preference to upscale as they forget the demographics that make up Escondido, home to the "common man."

Thrift shops, auto repair facilities, check-cashing outlets and discount stores have a large customer base residing along the East Valley Parkway area, and some may have voted for and expect to be represented by their elected officials. Unfortunately, many may fall into the lower-income brackets and some may depend upon these businesses placed on the "undesirable list," a roster that may weed out, eliminate, or eventually place these businesses far from their customers.

What could the reasoning behind this mandate be? Maybe these types of new businesses now prohibited on East Valley Parkway statistically are not long-term, economically viable. Their customers may be transient.

The demographics do not attract upscale new business ventures. If this is true, so what? Is this not thinly veiled elitist reasoning?

Personally, I do not think Valley Parkway will be the only area subject to "overlay planning." Will Quince Street and West Valley Parkway, Old Escondido or the West Side area be next? Will homes follow as the Supreme Courts allow cities to use eminent domain and demolish entire areas to erect large, upscale business ventures that generate lucrative tax revenues?

Tattoo parlors provide their clientele with a product ---- "art" ---- just as art shops on Grand Avenue do. Could a businesswoman lease a storefront on Grand Avenue and open an upscale tattoo parlor? Would her tattoo art business be subject to "overlay planning review" where subjective decision-making deems a tattoo parlor as undesirable? I have not heard anyone say we have too many arts-related businesses along Grand Avenue.

But some say we have too many thrift shops and discount stores on Valley Parkway. Has this argument been applied equally and fairly?

Thrift shops, liquor or discount stores, pawn shops, auto repair shops, car dealerships, check-cashing outlets, or retail shops that sell items at one price all provide products and services to their customers.

Escondido is still home to many less fortunate residents who depend upon some of these "unattractive" businesses that are now banned in the future. I am saddened that our city leaders use the words desirable and undesirable.

James L. Condomitti lives in Escondido.

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