Bruce Whitaker’s Cash Cow

The other evening the Fullerton City Council discussed the issue of letting bar owners cram more of their top-shelf patrons into downtown Fullerton night clubs, a move that the bar owners ludicrously claim will actually help with all that mayhem that occurs on a typical week-end evening. As a tangent, the idea of taxing the generators of all the trouble came up.

Here is our esteemed Mayor, Bruce Whitaker, calmly explaining why some sort of public revenue generating scheme would a bad idea.

This is so disingenuous in several aspects that it’s hard to know where to start. The idea that the private business interests are the best at providing some sort of “management” at the lowest cost is absurd given the fact that the taxpayers are already  providing vastly subsidized security and maintenance in the downtown war zone.  It is the o-so trustworthy bar owners (that Whitaker claims have the biggest stake in a smoothly operating downtown) who benefit from public services they aren’t paying for.

Whitaker knows very well that the open air saloon known as Downtown Fullerton costs the taxpayers more than $1,500,000 per year. It’s a classic money pit. The irony is rich. The idea that the city government might milk DTF is absolutely absurd. The fact is that Whitaker’s bar-owner campaign contributors are making money on the backs of the rest of us – and Whitaker – despite his rhetoric – knows this damn well.

The real point is that once again Whitaker and his spineless council colleagues are going to bat for their saloon owning pals, people who have stolen public sidewalks, habitually violated the City’s noise ordinances, whose patrons wreak havoc on our streets and on themselves every night. Whitaker and the City Council have not only turned looking the other way into a full-time job, they have gone out of their way to prop up and publicly subsidize the booze peddlers they enabled in the first place.

And as usual, the rest of us pick up the bar tab.

21 Replies to “Bruce Whitaker’s Cash Cow”

    1. 4-0.
      Sebourn abstained from the vote after he couldn’t get the council to agree to ask staff to determine the actual cost to the city to maintain the bar district currently and to consider resolving the bar issues before making this change.

      1. Good for Sebourn. Some common sense. But in the end the other four caved in to Popoff and Florentine and the douchebag culture.

  1. Remember the bar owners, er, I mean “businessmen’s” district map? Whitaker is still defending that dereliction.

  2. Let’s not forget that Bruce needs Newman’s seat so he can cash in on his own Calpers retirement plan. Only a few more years and he’ll be fully vested and have his retirement paid for by you and me. Funny he was elected because of his principals.

  3. The term “cash cow” was really a reference to Chaffee & Sebourns grand scheme to take a cut of bar cover charges and parking lot/structure fees in the downtown respectivly. The extra money raised would probly only make fullerton a less freindly place to live and no dividends would be realized. Preventive maintnance is the best medicine~ Smart carful thought out planning not more regulation and taxation. Fullerton polititians created the present downtown and its important to keep a good relationship with all buisness owners there and not strangulation. You can’t place regulations on a few without it affecting everybody.

    1. “The extra money raised would probly only make fullerton a less freindly place to live and no dividends would be realized.”

      Says who?

    2. “…a good relationship with all buisness owners there and not strangulation.”

      In other words, let the business owners (saloon keepers) keep exploiting their booze culture for their profit at OUR expense. Thanks for that.

  4. Privatize the profits & socialize the losses, it’s malfeasance 101. And all this so Whitaker and the rest can get back 0.001% of the windfall in the form of campaign contributions to make sure they stay employed/in ‘power’. Calling them cheap dates is putting it, uh, euphemistically.

  5. Funny. If anyone would look at the last council race contribution sheets, you might see that Whitaker took from only two downtown businesses and Popoff was not on that list. Maybe a bit of actual investigating a story before you claim all as the gospel truth is in order. Maybe ex hippie doesn’t even live in Fullerton? Chew on this..punish the bar owners and push them out of Fullerton, then what? Antique stores? I don’t think so.

    1. Hmm. I once went to a campaign party for Whitaker held by…Popoff.

      Anyway the point is that crony capitalism takes several forms. And as nipsey has stayed quite succinctly, above, one of them is the assumption of cost by the public while the privateers rake in the loot at our expense.

      So go chew on that cud in one of your four stomachs.

      P.S. What Whitaker “took” in the last election is not as important to him as what he wants to take in the next one.

    2. Out-of-control bars or antique stores. The Jennifer Fitzgerald false choice. Good to see the Fullerton Fisters lining up with the douchebag culture of Popoff & Co.

    3. Please do push them out. Or eight of them.

      Downtown is a public safety disaster. Fights, stabbings, mayhem, rape and murder.

      What decent cop would WANT to work patrol in Fullerton?

      That’s a serious problem. Bruce should fix it. He’s enabling it.

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