Benavides apparently wants to keep bars in town open until 4 a.m.

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• what else is a lonely divorcee going to do from 2am to 4am?!?!?! Seriously though, your nanny state, prohibitionist ways only drive drinking into the shadows where real problems emerge (ones with statistics and evidence).

  • From the looks of the PAYAN X video with David and Roman, their gonna do EACH OTHER!

    Now this makes sense: The Harley, the absence of wifey and kids, sudden change from Biola Bible thumper, to Newsong "Jesus loves gays".

    We should check and see if they bunked together in Chicago, the city could have saved some dough and Roman could have taken Pablo for a "bareback ride".

    How long before PDB starts to promote glory holes downtown? the Velvet lounge has a special named after him? He starts calling McCarthy (oop's I mean O'Rourke) Daddy?

    Just sayin'

• "Apparently" is your blaring alarm here, Art! Your readership knows to take these articles with a grain of salt whenever you report anything that involves anyone that ever chose to go against Pulido. How about some real reporting? Did you contact Benavides and ask him the facts? There is nothing "New" about your blog!

  • No need to call him. I have documentation but I don't have permission to post.

    That he is pushing for this should come as no surprise given his behavior over the past two years.

  • Lomeli. Go back to Orange.

    • Carpetbagger: Lomeli has bigger balls than you and I combined and is not afraid to put his real name on anything that he says! And do you really think that he's the only person that disagrees with Art?

      • I'll leave any reference to Mr. Lomeli's balls alone. For the record, I (unlike the knee jerk SA Spring supporters) only agree with Pedroza when I think he's right.

        Otherwise I will say so.

        Hey how's that whole SA Spring working out? No city manager, no deputy city manager, no public works director.....but we have early AM workouts and a new bar! Now we have a leader who wants to extend dri king hours?

• You are very mean on Mondays aren't you?
  What gives you the right to suggest that the UASA people would be in favor of having alcohol sales extended to 4 in the morning? I have never heard any of the United Artists suggesting anything like that.
  We like David for his kind words about the value of Art for a city not any nonsense about alcohol sales after 4:00
  And maybe you do have your facts wrong about what he is proposing.

  • If the award you gave him was because he kissed up to you guys with kind words than the award was as useless as most of the art being sold in our downtown.

    I have been granted permission to post the document indicating what Benavides is proposing. Here it is: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7jGThCKKGZYUWJkR0JzYzI1SkE/edit?usp=sharing.

    • So how is this document attributed to Benavides?

      • If he wants to refute it, he is welcome too.

• I like your new page heading "Arts and Culture"
  right after your Dog house Symbol and your "Home" page.
  You and your developer buddies cut from the same cloth.
  Let's poop all over the artists and "arts and culture" all the while exploiting it to death to sell new corporate development and racist commercial upgrading, the opposite of what the United Artists are all about.
  Maybe you hate Benavides because he reminds you so much of yourself? Only he is kinder.

  • I don't have any developer buddies. In fact if you read my OC Politics blog, and I know you do, you will see that I go after the developers all the time.

    In fact this weekend my blog was the ONLY Media source to present an Art Walk article - with complete links to all of your Art Walk activities. Even Downtown Inc has given up doing that!

    Just last year Benavides tried to sell your Santora building to his church and now you goofs gave him an award! LOL! You guys must all be drunk.

    Benavides is a big fake as far as I can tell. You should not trust that politician smile of his.

• According to that Google Document. It does in deed sound as though there is a proposal for a "Fixed Bar" to be serving alcohol as long as it is not solely serving alcohol without food until 4.
  So you might be correct Jerk Off.
  Now leave the artists out of it and go after the politicians like yourself!

  • I am not a politician. Benavides is and you and your pals just gave him an award. How ridiculous.

  • Interesting that Matthew would use the term "Jerk Off". I noticed David is all for the prohibition of glory holes and strip shows, but is OK if we allow visitors downtown to get blind drunk until sunrise.

    This is BAD policy, NO MATTER WHAT. Wasn't the whole artist village supposed to get rid of the seedy bars and nightclubs that dotted the neighborhood? Oh, but, wait, Chase realized those brownies didn't have the kind of disposable income that the "East End" will bring.

    Yeah.

    • yep

• As Mateo has asserted, Mr Benavides' alcohol policies didn't enter into UASA's deliberation for awardees. We can assure you that Professional Artists spend more time in their studios than at the bars. We'd all rather spend our $$$ on Art Supplies.

  Has Benavides made mistakes in the past with business loyalties that would negatively impact SA's Creative Industries & questionable dealings that hurt professional Artists, YES! Has he made consistent gestures all year toward being more publicly supportive of the Arts, YES!

  Mr. B has been present at every single one of UASA's City Meetings, has been a regular presence at ArtWalk and has consistently advocated for Support of the Arts at Council. The 2013 award recognizes this improvement in his public Arts stance. Whether Benavides will "walk his talk" throughout the year will be determined. UASA is shining the spotlight muy bright so that we may all observe what comes out of it.

  Who will the 2014 Council winner be? Amezcua? Sarmiento? Tinajero? Reyna?

  UASA looks forward to expanding it's Art Hero award in years to come to include City Staff and neighborhood Art-ivists in order to motivate support for the Arts City-wide. If we all join together to nurture Santa Ana Arts & Culture industries, they will fully flower into lucrative revenue streams that enrich the quality of life for ALL Santaner@s.

  Santa Ana is a Pauper sitting on a throne of GOLD. $$$

  If we tapped into our region's Creative Economy, our City government would receive hundreds of thousands of dollars (via Film Permit fees, higher Retail Tax Revenues, more Hotel Taxes, attracting Cultural Investors) that could be channeled to enhancing our Parks & Bike Paths, building more Live/Work studios, Civic Design Projects, Public Art & supporting Arts Education for our Youth & Elders.

  The Arts mean Business! $$$

  For more information on the economic impact of the Arts, visit:

  http://www.artsusa.org/information_services/research/services/economic_impact/default.asp

  http://www.cac.ca.gov/artsinfo/economicimpact.php

• That's right. What Arty said.

• I think this is a TERRIBLE idea. Yes, we have great proprietors now, and some great ones trying to start up, but that doesn't mean there will always be great operators for places open until 4 a.m. I also heard a rumor that the committee may want to start allowing bar licenses again. This is also a terrible idea. Santa Ana should be known as an artsy place, and a place to get great food, not a place to come get drunk with free parking. I am all in favor of the new market getting on board with fashionable spots, but not the whole total bar and 4:00 a.m. scene. Just wrong in so many ways. And I don't think the community would want it either!

• I think that "Me", and "Carpet Bagger" and even "Jerk Off" are all on basic target here as well. A 4:00 am bar scene is rediculous. This city is going to run the whole cycle of gentrification in 2o years back into the ground!
  Just like Carpetbagger said, the whole reason that the artists were brought in and the property owners were subsidized by the state was so that the seediness of the bars and drug addicts could be cleaned up and now we are headed right back where we started from. Congratulations Downtown Capitalistas!
  "The only color I see is Green" says the P.C. Neo- Liberal property owner capitalistas. Green and yellow puke all over the sidewalks, no wonder they need extra cleaning crew funding.

• Admin,

  I spotted a thread at the VOC, focused on Obama Care, like so many other threads there, it was quickly hijacked.

  An interesting question arose:

  Who pays councilmembers health insurance? Is it city sponsored? If not, does OC Health alliance provide Michele Healthcare? How much does she pay?

  A better question might be, now that Roman is seemingly unemployed (his OCDE contract expired last week), how does he pay for his healthcare?

  These are REAL issues, not easily blown off by the council "SPRINGSTERS".