The Busy Bee Hardware and Dry Goods store has been a fixture in our city for longer than any of us can remember. In fact that store, now just called Busy Bee Hardware, moved to its present location in 1922. The wood plank floor has been walked on by generations of Santa Monica residents seeking a washer, a burlap bag, a good hammer…it is, most importantly, that simple shop where everyone knows your name...
Busy Bee is the last remaining hardware store in our city. It’s a store that would feel at home in any small town in America. Luckily for us, it’s in Santa Monica. Exceptional customer service has always been the trademark of this legendary business. Now it’s threatened. UCLA owns the land directly east of Busy Bee and is using it as a parking lot for their medical facilities. They have offered to buy the small parcel of land that Busy Bee occupies, in order to add about a dozen valet parking spaces. UCLA has told the Haine family (property owners) that a key provision of this sale would be the closing of Busy Bee Hardware. That’s right. Ninety-four years of continuous business in one location in our city would be wiped out by UCLA’s need for more parking. To insure victory, my friends at UCLA (yes, I’m a Bruin), have sued the property owner and Busy Bee for encroaching on their property. Evidently the east retaining wall stands – “wait for it” – three inches into UCLA’s property. That wall has been there for at least a half-century. For three inches and a dozen parking spaces, UCLA would wipe out the oldest existing business in Santa Monica...
Shouldn’t UCLA, a public institution that owns a hospital and medical facilities in our town have some respect for our history? Shouldn’t they recognize the value of the businesses that existed here before their purchase of Santa Monica Hospital? William S. Mortensen, the co-founder of that hospital in 1926, shopped at Busy Bee and respected the surrounding businesses...
We have a choice – let UCLA create a few more parking spaces… and that parking lot will surely give way to a high-rise medical tower within a decade. We can choose the drive to a big box store like Home Depot for our nuts and bolts. Or we can let UCLA know that our Busy Bee Hardware store is iconic...
Full story at http://www.smmirror.com/articles/News/Opinion-SMart-Busy-as-a-Bee/46096
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