The City of Santa Monica is clearly spending time and resources to ensure that the 200 vacation rentals in the city are shut down permanently.

In the meantime, I have a friend who lives a few blocks away in a rent-controlled building. Three of the units are being illegally rented at non-rent control rates, and upgrades were performed to these units without permits. The building owner recently cut down a tree in the front yard (without a permit). The building is in such bad shape that my friend lost a signifant number of clothes last winter when copious quantities of water fell through the roof and her clothes mildewed (she was away at the time). So far, despite her frequent complaints, the city has done nothing but fine the owners, who claim to be too poor to fix the building.

Perhaps the city should work harder on fixing this problem, which cannot possibly be unique to my friend's building, and spend less time shutting down 200 vacation rentals (whose owners would happily pay tax and licensing fees).