Pier Pressure: Critics Call for New Direction After Standoff; Supporters Call Shooting "Isolated Incident"

Jorge Casuso

It took a long distance call from more than 2,000 miles away to alert Councilman Robert Holbrook that a volatile hostage situation was unfolding a dozen blocks from his home in the early morning hours of July 4.

The 5 a.m. call from CNN in Atlanta, immediately followed by a call from CBS in Boston, showed just how quickly images had spread of the 5-hour standoff that led to the wounding of three officers and three civilians on the Santa Monica Pier.

"I wasn't aware they had pictures of this all over the world going," Holbrook said. "It was the number one news story in America for four to five hours, unfortunately. It doesn't help the pier's image any."

And image is everything for the 95-year-old landmark that is a destination for 3 million visitors a year, as well as a popular television backdrop for weather forecasts, late night talk shows and commercial breaks during sporting events.

Hours after the siege ended with the arrest of gunman Oswaldo Amezcua, who is wanted in association with three separate gang slayings, the impact of the violent incident broadcast 'round the world already was being debated. So was the city's vision for the massive wooden structure at the foot of Colorado Avenue.

City officials viewed the shooting and taking of 15 hostages as an isolated incident that could have happened anywhere.

"In my mind it had nothing to do with the pier per se," said Jan Palchikoff, executive director of the Pier Restoration Corporation, which runs the pier. "This is the sort of thing that can happen anywhere.

"This is a place that is treated like a public street and anyone can come here," Palchikoff said. "That is the great asset. Unfortunately, bad people can come here too."

Palchikoff said that since the police substation was put on the pier four years ago, "the general trend is that crime is quite low."

But neighbors, who have long complained of crime on and around the pier, called for change -- from shutting establishments down earlier, if not altogether, to placing metal detectors at gated entrances.

Ellen Brennan, president of the South Beach Neighborhood Association, said the Fourth of July shootings highlight an ongoing safety problem at the pier.

"We see it as part of a pattern," said Brennan, who lives in an apartment just south of the pier. "We want to know why it is that gang members come to the Santa Monica Pier. It's time for a sea change."

Brennan noted that Tuesday's incident was the second multiple shooting on the pier in less than four months. On March 11, five people were wounded during what police believe was a gang-related shooting. On May 28, a passenger leaving a beach parking lot near the pier was shot and wounded shortly before midnight.

Brennan believes it's time for the focus of the pier to change "from fun zone to a sea experience." The City, she said, should consider shutting down Pacific Park -- the large "fun zone" with a roller coaster and Ferris wheel at the end of the pier -- and the Playland Arcade, a popular late night hangout.

Instead, the pier should become a "soul satisfying" experience that connects "sun, surf and sea," Brennan said.

"I would like to see the arcade gone, and I would like to see Pacific Park gone," said Brennan, who watched the early morning incident through binoculars from the roof of her building. "It could be funky, it could be expensive and it could be a mix. It could be quality restaurants with curtains of glass. But we just can't allow this to continue."

Neighborhood activist Stephanie Barbanell wants the city to adopt anti-gang terrorist legislation, beef-up security around the pier, limit hours of operation and establish gated entries with metal detectors.

"The city of Santa Monica is still in denial of its well-documented and perilous gang problem on the pier and immediate surroundings," Barbanell wrote in an email. "Why is the Santa Monica pier and its surroundings a magnet for gangs and their murderous behavior. What's attracting the gangs here?"

Part of the answer, Barbanell believes, is "cheap entertainment" and late hours.

"Cheap entertainment attracts an element that can afford cheap entertainment," said Barbanell, who owns a house three streets south of the pier. "It's attractive to people who are young and have nothing to do. The pier becomes a very poor, de facto, childcare babysitting center."

If gang violence can't be eliminated, Barbanell said, the City should consider preventive measures, such as installing metal detectors at gated entrances like those at airports.

"Leave your guns, leave your hardware at home," Barbanell said would be the message sent. "This is not 1950 anymore."

Barbanell and Brennan said that the city should at least revisit the hours of operation for the fun zone and the arcade.

In December the council unanimously voted to exempt the Playland from a 10-year-old ordinance that requires arcades to close at 10 p.m. The council voted unanimously to keep the arcade -- which they said was a late-night tradition and one of the city's few inexpensive venues -- open until 2 a.m.

Holbrook said that the hostage standoff at the 50-year-old arcade should cause the city to rethink how late pier businesses should stay open.

"Clearly in my mind we've got to revisit what's staying open till 2 in the morning," Holbrook said. "As a community we're probably lucky. There could have been people killed."

Supporters of keeping pier establishments open late contend that the early morning incident was an isolated case that should bear no reflection on safety at the pier.

"I think it's one of those separate incidents that can happen everywhere," said Herb Katz, a former member of the Pier Restoration Corporation board. "During the day and early evening, the pier is safe.

"You've got one felon that happened to be there," said Katz, who is running for one of four open City Council seats in November. "It could have been in front of my house or your house. I don't think it's going to affect things. The public won't remember."

Nancy Greenstein, who recently stepped down from the PRC board after serving for nearly 11 years, believes that "people are sophisticated enough to see it as an isolated incident. We need to understand that in an urban society these things happen."

Greenstein objected to criticisms that the pier attracts gang members and low-income teenagers with nothing to do.

"I think there's a lot of racism in those sentiments," Greenstein said. "The thing that we love about the pier is that you can have a lot of money or little money and enjoy the pier."

"Try and think what the alternative will be," Palchikoff said. "Will we put up gates and start screening people? I would say that this pier has appeal to everybody. We have people from all over the world, from all cultures."

Supporters note that it didn't seem to take long for the public to forget the incident and start flocking back to the popular landmark, which attracts three times as many annual visitors as the Washington Monument. By Tuesday night the amusement lights were twinkling and the pier was jammed with visitors.

"We wait all year for the Fourth of July," said Marlene Gordon, co-owner of the Playland Arcade. "That is our most important day. We don't have fireworks on the pier anymore, but there are still beach goers and the beach goers come to the pier. Business is back to normal.

"My father's been here for 50 years and he never ever felt there'd be a problem like this," Gordon said. "This was an unusual situation. They (the suspects) came from another place. Unfortunately, they happened to come to my place."

To increase safety at the Arcade, Gordon bought a new phone system for each of her employees. The phones, which are like two-way radios, cannot be interrupted by frequency interference, allowing employees to communicate with each other if there is a problem. (During the hostage standoff, police shut down the arcade's phone system.)

By Wednesday afternoon, business at the Boathouse Restaurant was back to normal, said owner Naia Sheffield.

"Today has been fine," said, Sheffield, who along with Russ Barnard, owner of Rusty's Surf Ranch, served food and coffee to police officers, those stranded on the pier and the freed hostages during the 4-½ hour ordeal. "People realize it's not a pier thing. I think people are pretty happy. It should give them [visitors] more security knowing police have such a presence."

Sheffield, Gordon and a worker at the front desk of the police substation on the pier said the number of people visiting the popular landmark Wednesday was normal.

But Reina Alvarez of Alvarez Photo on the pier disagreed.

"It's definitely slower today for a Wednesday, compared to last Wednesday," said Alvarez, whose mother was working the photo booth when the gunfight broke out early Tuesday morning. Alvarez's 12-year-old brother had just left the Arcade when shots range out.

"It's bad publicity for the pier and bad publicity for tourism," said Alvarez, clicking her tongue piercing. The young woman, who noted the heavy police presence around and on the pier Wednesday, said she believes the landmark will continue to attract gang members.

"I think that no matter how long the Pier is here, they're going to be here every weekend," Alvarez said.

Teresa Rochester contributed to this report.