“CITY DOESN’T DO COOL” - a look into Temecula’s possible future

April 13, 2008 by PT Rothschild.

Temecula, CA – Sometimes you have to wonder, ‘who’s really running the city(s) anyway? After reporting sound bites like, “When adults try to make a place for kids they’ll stay away in droves,” and the title sound bite (by Chuck Washington and agreed to by Mary Ann Edwards, who are each city council members here, see Valley News, vol.8, issue 12, Peter Surowski’s story, ‘Temecula plans to make city more teen-friendly’), the City of Temecula set a policy into motion just this past week of pulling the business licenses of stand-alone bars and Tat shops because those types of businesses don’t fit the ‘image’ of what the ‘city’ wants to project.


It would seem that this is the unrevealed side of the ‘youth Master plan’; a business genocide arrangement to weed out the unwanted places ‘they’ have deemed ‘undesirable’, regardless of signed leases. After successfully closing down all the youth hangouts and cool scene spots (Madlins, The Firehouse, The Vault, Cuppy’s, Barnes & Nobles outside scene, and others) through jack-boot tactics and bureaucratic chicanery, the ‘city’ shut down the two money-making 21+ clubs at Temecula’s foremost Native American casino known as Pechanga, according to insiders familiar with the case. Guess the honeymoon is over with the ‘pale faces’ as the ‘city’ pressured the Indians to close the two popular gathering spots for the 21-35 age group by saying they would drop a dime on ‘em to the ABC board. The reason, the police were making too many calls to the casino or in other words, they were doing their job, the one they are paid to do.

I suppose it is the only way to insure that they can roll three squads for every teen they stop and search.

I have to wonder about two things. First, after reading, hearing and seeing situations like the (unrelated) brawl the first night of last year’s International Film Fest at Aloha J’s, the killing of an unarmed citizen in Old Town, and the number of police calls (public record) made in a month to the Promenade Mall, you have to wonder why the ‘Indians’ were singled out, or maybe you don’t. Second, after hearing comments made by Al Rattan and Robert Peel who have painted the ‘city’ in a financial ‘Bob&Carol&Ted&Alice’, it seems ‘the only game in town’ will be the ones that benefit the ‘hommies’ that want to sanitize T-Town or have a ‘sanctioned’ business, like the Stampede.

What’s next for here, well, perhaps this was an omen:

While standing outside a now closed gathering spot for non-drinking music lovers just the other day, a young person pulled up in a car, looked at me and said, “Temecula is a ‘whore’ town.” I asked him how he could say that with ‘a church on every corner instead of a bar.’ He answered, “That’s the problem, there are ten different churches in this town.” I answered, ‘that’s called religious tolerance.’ His reply to that was to speed off, but not before I saw the huge black leather-bound Bible sitting squarely on his dashboard.

Some of you may say, well, my kids didn’t go to music shows so why do I care. The people who went to Club Silk and the Eagle’s Nest at Pechanga didn’t care about the kids’ music shows either, and now they have nowhere ‘smart’ and ‘cool’ to go locally. Soon it will be the ‘Q-Club’, maybe High Society’, 1^st Amendment, and then YOUR favorite place. How this will play out in November remains to be seen.

(ed. Note: Various sources, local and in Orange County, contributed to this story.)

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