Studio City Patch has been the progress of an idea being floated by local musician Toby Gad to turn Ventura Place into a pedestrian mall like Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade.
More green space, what could be bad? Well the merchants on the block-long Place will tell you. The recession has been hard enough on local business. The idea of taking away the few parking spaces on their street has owners seeing red.
Sangeeta Sahni of predicts the change would put them out of business. Mark Weitz of says the Sunday Farmers Market has already cut into his business. Breeze Munson from and Shawn Aghdassi of see both the good and bad points.
Almost everybody I spoke to sees the loss of parking and drive-bys as a threat to their livelihoods.
The issue will be brought to the on May 9.
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