[Some news of the weird.]
Civic Leaders Think City Has Too Much Art
By GARANCE BURKE
The Associated Press
Wednesday, August 3, 2005; 2:38 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/03/AR2005080301397.html
CARMEL-BY-THE-SEA, Calif. -- The artists discovered this village in the
early 1900s and put up wooden cottages where they could paint the shoreline
and the coastal pines. Then the art dealers arrived, with their silky
scarves, their flute-filled soundtracks and their airy galleries.
Now, some civic leaders say, Carmel-by-the-Sea has a problem many
communities probably did not even know existed: too much art.
Galleries selling everything from Impressionist landscapes to
butterfly-shaped baubles and cartoon dog portraits account for one of every
three businesses along Carmel's stone walkways. In all, 105 stores sell art
in this town of about 4,100 residents. For a while, the city was approving
a new gallery every week.
"People are upset. They can't go to a movie theater. They can't buy socks
in this town," said Ross Arnold, owner of the Carmel Drug Store, the only
shop of its kind. "You walk down the street and it's gallery, gallery,
jewelry store, gallery, gallery."
The art glut has also created problems for the city's finances: Mayor Sue
McCloud complained that the 35 galleries that have opened since 2000 have
yielded just $5,000 in sales tax revenue for the town. That is because
California law exempts tourists from paying sales tax on purchases they get
shipped out of state.
Late last year, city leaders labeled the proliferation of galleries a "real
and impending threat" and virtually banned any new ones from opening in
this community two hours south of San Francisco.
Local governments in tourist destinations such as Key West, Fla., and
Aspen, Colo., have also found that it is hard to live on art alone. But
these and other cities often enjoy revenue from hotel stays, outdoor
sports, nightlife and other goods and services.
Carmel is a relative pauper in this regard. In part because it is near
Pebble Beach, it is a major destination for golfers, but its tiny downtown
all but closes down when night falls.
Similarly, in Santa Fe, N.M., art dealers have been on the defensive since
politicians complained the city's art industry was not a good engine for
economic growth and did not produce enough tax revenue, said Michael
Carroll, who heads the gallery association there.
"We're still battling the image that all we do is sell pictures of howling
coyotes," Carroll said. "People don't understand that we're the good guys."
In Carmel-by-the-Sea, the near-moratorium approved in November was designed
in part to support local artists.
New galleries can obtain business permits only if they dedicate 80 percent
of their space to the work of one artist, or if the gallery has a working
studio in use at least half the time its doors are open.
Gallery owner George Stern said the city would do better to limit the
number of T-shirt shops and ice cream stores.
"I just don't get it," said Stern, a prominent Los Angeles dealer whose
gallery was the last to squeeze in before the ban. "The restrictions have
the possible tendency of developing a provincial aspect to the work."
Along Ocean Avenue, tourists can chose from a seemingly endless supply of
look-alike pastel landscapes selling for as much as $8,000 each.
Landscape painter Dick Crispo is nostalgic for the town he knew _ a quiet
artists' colony filled with cheap hamburger joints and art supply stores.
"You can't even buy a paint brush here anymore," he said.
Enid Sales, who has lived in Carmel on and off since 1933, said the ban
could bring a welcome change: "Maybe now I'll be able to walk downtown and
buy something useful."
================================
George Antunes, Political Science Dept
University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204
Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927
antunes at uh dot edu
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