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Santa Monica’s top bureaucrat has tried to claim President Trump is to blame for the city turning into a hellhole in recent years.
City Manager Oliver Chi claimed Trump’s policies have contributed to a decline in international tourism which has impacted the enclave — but left out the fact there has been hundreds of millions of dollars in legal settlements, lingering fallout from the pandemic, retail vacancies and rampant homelessness.
“There was a real sense, I think, a year ago that maybe Santa Monica’s best days were behind it,” Chi told The Wall Street Journal. But, he added, “it can still be one of the coolest places on the planet.”
The city of roughly 90,700 residents formally declared “fiscal distress” last September after a cascade of financial setbacks, the Journal reported.
Among the biggest burdens are roughly $230 million in settlements stemming from decades-old sexual abuse claims involving a former city IT employee — a sum equal to nearly 30% of Santa Monica’s annual budget.
The city’s finances were further battered when the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out hotel and sales tax revenue, forcing officials to lay off more than 400 municipal workers, or about one-fifth of the workforce.
Just months later, widespread looting during the civil unrest following George Floyd’s murder devastated downtown businesses, leaving many merchants struggling to recover.
Chi told the Journal that Santa Monica has since been hit by falling numbers of international visitors, which he attributed to Trump’s policies, while last year’s devastating Pacific Palisades wildfire displaced thousands of wealthy nearby residents who regularly shopped and dined in the city.
Despite signs of improvement, downtown remains dotted with vacant storefronts.
Retail and restaurant vacancies hover around 20% — among the highest rates in Los Angeles County — while Santa Monica Place continues to struggle after its owner defaulted on a $300 million loan in 2024.
The once-bustling shopping center has been reduced to a nearly empty food court anchored by a lone Sbarro after Nordstrom shut down its longtime location last year.
Business owners say crime, homelessness and public drug use also drove customers away during the city’s darkest stretch.
“It became not nice,” A.J. Sacher, operations manager at Barney’s Beanery, told the Journal, recalling that the sports bar suffered four or five overnight break-ins during 2020 and 2021.
“Santa Monica is hyperdependent on tourism and hospitality, and so if it’s not a nice and safe place to be, they’re going to have major problems.”
Michael Mandel, co-owner of Pier Pizza & Subs, said open drug use continues to discourage visitors.
“The open consumption of drugs in public is absurd,” Mandel said. “You clean that up, you know, you start to see the streets get cleaned up again.”
Longtime local leaders also acknowledged City Hall failed to evolve as shopping habits changed.
“It was an inertia that assumed the city could coast on its revenue and reserves without recognizing that both those were more fragile than people assumed,” former City Manager Rick Cole said.
Jim Harris, executive director of the Santa Monica Pier Corp., said the famous Third Street Promenade also failed to keep pace with competing entertainment districts that invested in more attractions, events and restaurants.
City leaders have since reversed course.
Santa Monica now allows major fast-food chains after previously banning them, and businesses including Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers are opening along the Promenade. Officials have also increased police patrols downtown, moved the city’s homeless shelter farther from the retail core, lowered outdoor dining fees and rolled out AI-powered software to speed up business permits.
The city has also created an “entertainment zone” allowing visitors to carry alcoholic drinks outdoors on weekends and during special events.
Officials say the turnaround is beginning to show results.
Property crime has declined, police staffing is on track to reach full strength for the first time in nearly 20 years and visitor numbers at the iconic Santa Monica Pier are approaching pre-pandemic levels of roughly 12 million to 14 million annually.
“We have far more events than we ever had before,” Harris said.
The FIFA World Cup has already provided an economic boost, while city officials are pinning even bigger hopes on the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics after securing agreements with delegations from France, Switzerland and England to host hospitality events during the Games.
“The real way to get back to prosperity is we need the local economy to thrive again,” Chi said. “What we can do is create an environment in the city that’s investable.”
English (US)