San Pedro Chamber of Commerce and Business District are Clueless

Working to pull in out of town shoppers is a good idea. Being able to pull in local shoppers is good as well. Key to both of those plans is a regular set of store hours down town. And key to both of those plans are full shops. People always talk about bringing in some type of "draw" to down town. That is a good idea, but we should lien on the landowners to actually price their retail space so there are not so many empty shops. Our downtown landowners are not working together. They focus on their own bottom line, not realizing that the more shops that are open leads to more foot traffic which leads to more businesses wanting to come down town, which in turn leads to higher rents. As it stands today the retail space per foot costs too much and the landlords are not working together. Each landlord prices businesses out of downtown. And then they complain about the lack of businesses that want to rent their spaces. Maybe they should remember that they are in America and should price their spaces competitively. If the landlords lowered their rents San Pedro can get more shops downtown, which in turn will lead to higher rents long term.