Every now and then, it seems like another little “buy local” bubble burbles up. It’s happening again here; I see signs in store windows, and people exhorting me to buy local in various articles, and, as usual, it’s evoking a series of emotions in me.

You’d think that I might be all about the Buy Local movement, but, the thing is, it’s complicated. And the movement totally ignores some major class issues, and some serious disability issues.

Let’s talk about the class issues first, because they’re easy to dispatch: Buying local is not an option for everyone. Buying local can be more expensive, it can be more time consuming, it can mean settling for products which are not quite what one wants, and may cost more to boot. For people who have the economic privilege to buy local despite these issues, that’s great. But for people who do not, constantly being shamed and being told you’re not a good person for not buying local is really not very helpful. Monumentally unhelpful. In fact, it can spark some resentment.

The disability issues: A lot of local businesses are inaccessible. A lot of non-local businesses are inaccessible. For some people with disabilities, mail order really is the most accessible option. Being told that you should buy local when you can’t or it’s extremely hard is, again, very unhelpful. And if you’re an ally to people with disabilities, it gets a bit peevish to be told that you should ignore the fact that a business is inaccessible and spend your money there. Oh, your friend in the wheelchair can wait outside, it’s not that cold.

That said, I like buying local. But I look for more than a business which is owned by a local. Here’s what I look for:

• A business which is owned by a woman or someone who is gender nonconforming. I like to support people with whom I have something in common, and being a female/gender nonconforming businessowner is an uphill battle.
• A business which is owned by a person with disabilities. All the hardships faced above are even more extreme for PWDs. It’s rare to find a disabled business owner, let alone one who is open about ou disability, but, when I can, I try to kick some money into the way of businesses owned by disabled folks.
• A business which operates ethically. Being “local” does not necessarily make you ethical. Where does the business source its products? Do they order/work with unethical companies? How well do their pay/treat their workers?
• A business which is accessible. Not just to me, but to disabled folks in general. I am not going to spend money in a business that my friend Katy cannot get into. That my friend Angelo cannot get into. That any number of my friends cannot get into. Why should I support a business which tells my friends they aren’t welcome with a “just one step” doorway, with narrow aisles, with a deluge of scent, with bright lights, with flashy things?
• A business which carries things I want. I’m sorry, I am not going to settle for what I do not want just so I can buy it locally. I am very particular about things that I buy. I’m willing to pay more to buy locally (because I have that privilege) but I am not willing to pay more and get something which does not meet my needs.
• A business with good service. This is a huge one for me. A lot of businesses with “buy local” in their windows have some of the surliest, most useless staff I have ever encountered. I am not going to buy local just so that I can be abused. You can’t guilt me into giving money to you even when your staff are rude.

Everyone’s got their own laundry list of things they think about when they decide where to spend their money.

This is how capitalism works, people. If you’re going to live/work/engage in a capitalist system, you need to take the bad with the good. And consumer freedom can sometimes be bad, because consumers can choose which businesses they want to patronize, and have sound reasons for their choices.

Guilting consumers to try and get them to do something is not the solution. Setting things up to make a choice appealing is the solution. And, you know, it can be hard to do things like carrying affordable products when you are a small business and you cannot get good contracts with suppliers. I understand that.

But to say that consumers bear the responsibility alone. No. Business owners also need to get it together. There needs to be a recognition of the fact that consumers actually have valid reasons behind their decisions, and that if you want to attract customers, you need to explore what’s going on with them. Don’t dictate, shame, and guilt trip. Ask what would make people inclined to visit your business and spend money there.

The answer might be surprisingly simple. It might not be. But at least then you would know. Don’t assume that people aren’t spending money in your business because they think your things are too expensive: Maybe they can’t enter your business because of the scented candles you burn. Don’t assume that people aren’t spending money at your business because they aren’t pleased with the selection: Maybe it’s because they are tired of being abused by your staff.

Maybe implementing small changes, changing the things you can change, would encourage more people to buy local. And as your customer base built, maybe you would be able to implement larger changes, like negotiating better discounts with your suppliers, or changing suppliers so you can carry a wider array of things.

Buy local or else.

Or else what?

Our downtown business district will disappear¹? You act like that’s a bad thing when, for the most part, downtown businesses are inaccessible, have horrible staff, and don’t carry things that people want. Notice how businesses which fill niches and respond to customer needs stick around. It’s not because they’re better at guilting people into buying local, it’s because they are better businesses.

We’ve been getting a lot of requests over at FWD/Forward to talk about medical marijuana, and I was recently having a conversation with some of the FWD contributors about what a complex issue this is, for me. I ended up going on quite the rant, and I realized as I was talking with them that what I think of as “normal,” what is “ordinary” for me is totally beyond the imagination of a lot of people.

(Note: Although I mention FWD here, this post is not appearing on FWD and it is not any sort of official statement about why FWD is/is not covering medical marijuana issues or when such issues will be covered. There’s a reason it’s appearing on my personal website and NOT FWD, so people who read both blogs, please keep this in mind. Be aware that we are discussing the issue, but I’m not going to respond to FWD-related questions about this issue on this post.)

I grew up in a weird place. I live in a weird place. I’ve written a lot about the social and class issues and the complexity of the community and society up here, but sometimes I forget that things which I view as fundamentally unremarkable are actually kind of extraordinary in the eyes of others. And the marijuana industry is one of those things; I see it and interact with it every day and as a result it’s just ordinary to me, like taking the bus to work or picking out oranges at the supermarket.

I live in an area known as the Emerald Triangle. Humboldt, Trinity, and Mendocino Counties. It’s difficult to get an estimate on a black market, but it’s been extrapolated that marijuana accounts for two thirds of Mendocino’s economy. Two. Thirds. Statewide, the estimate is at around fourteen billion dollars. This is not small potatoes. Among my meatspace friends who live locally, I know very few people who are not involved, on some level, with the industry; growing, dealing, trimming, etc. It’s a culture which I am literally steeped in.

This is a place in which people pay for services in buds. I am regularly offered marijuana in trade for my work. This is a place in which bars have signs reminding people not to talk about their involvement in the trade because the bartender does not want to know and you never know where a cop might be lurking. This is a place in which the local radio station plays a sound loop of helicopters to warn people when COMMET is out. This is a place in which helicopters are in the sky constantly during harvest season.

Marijuana has become especially fraught of late because a lot of Mendocino’s legitimate economy has been collapsing. Our fishery is pretty much done, the timber industry is largely over. The county is trying to position itself as a tourist destination, but this is extremely problematic, and it doesn’t even begin to chip away at the hegemony of the marijuana industry. (Not least because many businesses which cater to tourists are also supported by funds from the trade, in part because it’s extremely difficult to start a business, or to keep a business going during the months when the tourists are not here. If a business isn’t directly supported with weed money, the growers who come in during the fall may be the reason that business stays alive.)

Mendocino is a country of tremendous stratification; our real estate values are stratospheric, and people here tend to live at opposite extremes. You are either living in a tin shack with no running water, or you are living in a luxury house. Or you are living in a decent rental but you are scrabbling to make ends meet, to keep your head above water. Given this stratification and the fact that there are no jobs to make a living, is it any surprise that many people turn to marijuana to make ends meet?

Marijuana is tremendously profitable. It’s profitable because it’s illegal, and in Mendocino, where law enforcement is extremely lax, it can be pretty safe for minor players. Hence, during harvest season, you have people walking around with schwag stuck to their clothing. You have people paying in hundreds which reek of resin. You walk down the street and you’re probably going to detect a familiar skunky odor because grow houses are everywhere, or people are trimming in their houses. You stumble over a box in someone’s living room and pounds of marijuana spill out. “No biggie,” they say. You have a lot of flashy and expensive purchases happening every fall. There’s no attempt to be coy or discreet about it. Everyone knows. Not being involved in the trade is more remarkable than being involved, honestly.

This is the culture I grew up in. It’s the culture I live in. I’m used to laid back attitudes about marijuana, and I’m also very familiar with the huge social problems which accompany the industry. The use of state parks for growing, for example, which causes environmental damage and poses a threat to people who use the parks recreationally (you know, like, for their intended use?). The increasingly large size of marijuana busts, involving thousands of plants grown on public land and tended by workers who are smuggled into the United States to take care of the crop and take the fall if they get busted. The constant power outages caused by blowing transformers. The violence: Robberies, shootings, beatings, over deals gone wrong, arguments about splitting the take.

The curious thing is that legalization would resolve a lot of these issues; if people could grow openly and safely, some of the social problems would vanish. And be accompanied by a collapse of the local economy as the value of the crop plummeted and the county was no longer propped up by the industry. There’s a reason a lot of people in the industry are actually opposed to legalization.

Viewed from within this context, the medical marijuana issue is a complicated one, for me. Studies seem to suggest that marijuana may have some benefits for patients, and I think that we need to provide access to things which help patients. But I feel like the medical marijuana debate is more about an attempt to legitimize recreational drug use than it is about helping patients; especially since all of the people I personally know who have medical marijuana prescriptions use the drug recreationally, and admit it openly. (Which should not be taken to read that everyone with a prescription is a recreational user; personal anecdotes are not scientific data.)

There are a lot of problems with this approach to legalization. Personally, I think that recreational drug use should be legal. I think that it’s not my business to police the actions of others; if people enjoy getting high, I say have at it. And I say let’s take steps to make it safer for them. Legalization being a major step. I also think, though, that people who believe that recreational drug use should be legal should be open about it, rather than hiding behind the excuse of medical marijuana.

Because using medical marijuana as a gateway to full legalization delegitimizes the use of marijuana in medical treatment. Since people see the movement from the outside and go “oh, it’s just a bunch of stoners who want to get high.” The stigma faced by patients who need access to fully legal pain management drugs like, say, codeine is already intense. Patients who actually need marijuana and have not experienced a benefit from other drugs are constantly being informed with a nudge and a wink that they just want to get high. Medical marijuana advocates do not benefit from the widely held beliefs that marijuana has no medical benefits and that people really just want to get high.

Fun fact: While things like marijuana and codeine can make people high, they don’t actually have this effect in people who are taking them for medical reasons. A pain patient who takes, say, codeine isn’t getting high on the drug. The patient is experiencing a reduction in pain. And it’s important to avoid confusing recreational and medical uses. Both, in my opinion, are valid. But they are not the same thing.

Marijuana doesn’t work for all pain patients. It’s not a miracle cure (despite the beliefs of some medical marijuana advocates). It’s simply one option among many which should be available to patients so that those who do experience a benefit can receive it. Conversely, people who want to smoke to get high should also have marijuana available to them, because the pursuit of pleasure is a private activity which should not be legislated by the government unless it causes harm to someone else.

My relationship to medical marijuana is contentious and difficult because of the environment I live in. I think that in other areas, recreational use is less common and valid medical advocates are the primary face of the legalization movement, so it’s viewed very differently, and perhaps doesn’t carry as much of the social baggage that it does here.

And, on a personal level, I’m getting extremely tired of being told that marijuana would be good for me, and being asked if I’ve tried it as an option for managing my disabilities. Treatment recommendations/telling people how to manage their disabilities are never ok unless they are directly solicited.

So, yesterday I noticed that things kind of smelled smoky, but I didn’t really pay attention until they started smelling really smoky, and then I went outside to see what was going on, because, you know, smoky smells are bad, and…

Yup. That’s our fire department, setting things on fire, because that’s what they like to do. No, actually, practice burns are an important part of fire training, and the local fire department always appreciates the donation of a structure to burn down. It was coming down anyway, so why not let the fire department handle it?

This being Fort Bragg, the event attracted quite a crowd.

I took around….400 pictures, and uploaded a fraction of that number. There’s a sampling of images here, and loads more over in the set I created at Flickr, for those who, like me, just can’t get enough of watching things on fire (when it’s a controlled burn and everyone is safe).

Incidentally, all of these photos look 900% cooler when you embiggen them on Flickr.

Volunteer fire departments.

Seriously, folks, volunteer fire departments rock. The house next to me caught fire today and the fire department was ON IT. We can’t afford to maintain a fire department in the professional sense, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need fire services, so I’m glad that members of the community are out there to respond to things like, say, houses that are on fire. (Volunteer firefighters also handle some medical aid calls, search and rescue, car accidents, etc.)

Luckily one of the neighbors spotted the fire and called; I didn’t even notice until the fire department arrived (even though my house is two feet away, I don’t have windows on that side, so I couldn’t see and didn’t smell because it’s windy as all hell so all the windows are closed). The neighbor kept things under control until the fire department got here, which didn’t take long at all, and things got squared away pretty quickly. They probably lost their porch, but that’s about it, in part because the fire was spotted quickly and the fire department was so fast.

I also note that one of the firemen who responded was the electrician who dealt with the electrical system in my house in January 2008 when it was going all haywire. Small town.

So, if you happen to live in an area with a volunteer fire department, donate so that they can keep doing things like keeping your neighbors’ houses from burning to the ground.

Incidentally, the fire appears to have started because the neighbor is a smoker and kept a can full of butts on the porch next to a planter filled with dead plants. Make of that what you will, gentle readers.

Long-time readers may recall that my old house in Fort Bragg was ideally situated for parade viewing, since it was at the end of most major parade routes, and I could sit on the roof to watch and get good photos. My new house, as it turns out, is at the beginning of most major parade routes, which also makes it suitable for parade viewing, although I actually have to go to the front of the property to see, instead of sitting on the roof. I admit that I have been slacking on the parade photography over the last year or so (too busy to go out for Paul Bunyan Days, too cold for the Lighted Truck Parade, etc), but today I came home from the bookstore right as the Festa Parade was going by, so I had to grab some pictures.

Festa is actually my favourite parade in Fort Bragg. This was the 69th Holy Ghost Society Festa Parade, which goes to show you how long it’s been going on. And, one of the the things that’s interesting about it is that it is not publicized in/around Fort Bragg. Despite the fact that Festa and the Portuguese community are part of Fort Bragg’s history, they are effectively erased, which is really sad. Especially since people from other Portuguese communities all over Northern California come to our Festa, and in the Portuguese community, Festa is a big deal.

Festa parades have been going on for centuries, as part of a larger festival which commemorates Queen Isabel of Portugal, later canonized as a saint. Isabel was well known during her lifetime for her generosity to the poor, and according to legend, one evening she attempted to sneak some bread for the poor out of her castle, only to be apprehended by her angry husband. He demanded that she release her skirts to show what was inside, and the Queen complied, only to be surprised by the emergence of a shower of rose petals. Isabel was a remarkable women, and is also known as Isabel the Peacemaker because she forged peace between her husband and his son. (Her husband, incidentally, wasn’t such a bad guy.)

During Festa, a number of queens are crowned during festivities which last several weeks, culminating with a parade of the queens and other members of the Portuguese community and a traditional Portuguese meal. While the Portuguese community here is smaller and less active than it once was, it definitely exists, and it is a part of the cultural and ethnic history of Fort Bragg. Hopefully that will someday be recognized by all the white people who are supposedly responsible for promoting tourism here, because Festa should be a major cultural attraction, and it’s not.

Festas and parades actually take place in a lot of regions in the United States, and some of the participants in today’s parade probably also head to other parades in California. The history of the Portuguese in the United States is quite fascinating, and not discussed very often. It’s fascinating for me to see the preservation of Portuguese culture here, with Festa being a particularly notable example.

At any rate, here are some photos from the 2009 Festa Parade in Fort Bragg. There are lots more over on my Flickr if you are interested.

These were taken as the parade was just leaving Portuguese Hall and setting out on a pretty grueling and meandering route through Fort Bragg. I only started snapping about halfway through because I ran into friends and got distracted:

A Festa Queen and her attendants

Everyone looks very relaxed and happy throughout the parade, chatting with friends and having fun.

These participants came from Sebastopol. (California, not the Ukraine.) I love the cell phone; a great example of how casual everyone is.

Festa always has a ton of Little Queens.

About three hours later, I went parade hunting to meet up with the parade on its way back. I caught up with it at Pine and Franklin Streets, and meandered back towards Portuguese Hall with it. Along the way, I ran into an ex-Festa Queen who grew up in San Jose, and vividly remembered how heavy the capes are. Given that it’s pretty warm today, I felt pretty bad for the Festa Queens and their attendants; they were all looking like wilting lilies at this point, and no wonder!

Litters with religious statues are carried at the head of the parade.

The Knights of Columbus usually march near the head of the parade too.

Standard bearers for the Fort Bragg Holy Ghost Society, along with (I think?) the priest, who appeared pleased as punch to be busting out the formal cope.

Festa Queens and attendants from Oakland, mainly chosen to show you these awesome cowboy boots.

These two Little Queens were having fun.

You think the Queens look dolled up from the front? Check out this shot of the ornate embroidery and beading on their capes.

Several interesting things in this image; more embroidery detailwork, for starters, along with the somewhat out of character gowns worn by the attendants (you saw a shot of them from the front above). Finally, the tattooing, which is a bit unusual for the conservative and traditional types I usually see at the Festa Parade. This piece on her arm is really beautiful, and so was the piece on the other attendant, although alas I didn't get a good picture of it.

I believe I’ve written about grow houses here before. For those who aren’t familiar, a grow house is a house which is used for indoor marijuana cultivation. Most grow houses are converted, to some extent; fixtures ripped out, carpeting torn up, hack jobs on the wiring, etc. People use houses for growing because, well, there’s a certain amount of camouflage; you see a house, you think it’s a place where people live, not a place where weed is being grown. And they’re convenient. Well insulated, already wired, water supply, etc.

So, there are a couple of problems with grow houses. The cops here don’t like them because they can attract illegal activity when growers are dumb and deal out of wherever they are growing. To be fair, marijuana-related crimes are on the rise up here. And, of course, the cops don’t like weed. Until pretty recently, the cops couldn’t actually do anything about it, because there would be enough 215 cards* to cover all the plants. The City recently changed that by passing an ordinance which effectively bans grow houses.

Property owners tend not to like grow houses, because they think that they bring down property values. And, obviously, if it’s your own house that gets gutted by shitty tenants who grow, it’s doubly irritating. I honestly don’t have much sympathy for people who whine about declines in their grossly overinflated property values, but I do note that people somehow think it’s acceptable to totally neglect their properties when property values decline, so as a neighborhood pride thing, declines in property values concern me, since I would rather not live in a hellpit of neglected shitholes.

My problem with grow houses is that I am opposed to conversion of residential property for commercial/agricultural/any sort of non-residential use. I am a huge advocate for density, and would rather see all residential units occupied before more housing units are built. With every conversion, that’s a house that’s not available for someone to live in. That annoys me. Because it will be used as a justification by developers to push for building disgusting ugly housing developments where there used to be nice open fields.

But, recently, I’ve discovered yet another reason to be annoyed by grow houses. Astute readers may have noticed that I’m frequently referencing the fact that the power is out at my house all the time. We are not living in an era of rolling blackouts, people, it’s just our little section of town, and it’s constant, and it’s really annoying. I initially thought that the problems stemmed back to the power outage in 2008 when power for the whole neighborhood got wonky.

However, I ran into a PGE crew when they were working in the neighborhood, and they told me that the transformer in our neighborhood keeps blowing. There’s only one reason for a transformer to be blowing repeatedly: the demand on power is too high, too often. Our transformer is obviously designed to handle a substantial amount of residential loads. But what it’s not equipped to handle? The huge energy suck represented by a grow house. Of which we have at least two that I know of.

So, now it’s personal. I really, really, really don’t like it when my power goes out. You know what happens then? I can’t work, I don’t have hot water, and things in my fridge go bad. All of these things piss me off. And knowing that our power keeps going off because some fuckwit growers are overloading our transformer? That really pisses me off.

It’s also a stupid move on the part of the growers. The DEA can and does take action against growers/dispensaries/etc in California, because, hello, marijuana is illegal. One of the red flags they look for is excessive energy usage. So, having a transformer blow, repeatedly? It’s kind of like a giant sign that says “HI THERE! WE GROW MARIJUANA HERE! PLEASE COME RAID US!”

The grow houses in the neighborhood have been brought to the attention of the cops by the neighborhood watch, so I know the police are aware of them, but for whatever reason, they aren’t being raided. I’m not privy to the details, so I don’t want to speculate on why, but I do think it’s interesting here that we have a situation where we are explicitly reporting grow houses, power usage is spiking to back up our claims, and there are numerous unoccupied units on/near the block which cops have previously found squats in, yet nothing is being done.

The solution to this problem? In the long term, I mean? Fucking legalize marijuana, already. If it’s legal, there’s no point to growing in residential properties, because you can establish your very own growing facility openly, in your very own greenhouse, which is where indoor should be grown. If it’s legal, you don’t need to poach on private land to grow. If it’s legal, prices drop, which drives the nasties out of the business because there’s no rampant profiteering possibility. If it’s legal, we can free up law enforcement and legal resources for something more productive, like busting child molesters. And, of course, we’ll collapse the black market which is propping up the local economy, but that’s a discussion for another day.

*Despite the fact that the Mary Jane is illegal federally, if you have a 215 card in California (a reference to Proposition 215, which allows cultivation/use of marijuana on compassionate grounds), you are allowed a set number of plants. Patients who are really sick can have someone else grow plants for them on their 215 card. So what some growers do is get a bunch of 215 cards, enough to account for all their plants, so that their operations are technically legal under state law.

My father, my Chinese mother, and I recently went on a stroll along the Haul Road to the Pudding Creek Bridge, in all its glory. While we were leaning over the rail of the bridge to look at the tiny tourists scampering below, I noticed what I thought was a bird at the corner of my eye. I actually thought it was an owl, from the profile, which was really mystifying, since it was the middle of the day and sunny. My father noticed it to, and we turned to look and realized it was a squirrel.

The squirrel was quite happily sitting in a rather weird upright position, and even when we got quite close, it didn’t move, so I took a whole series of pictures. I know that squirrels can and do sit like this, and it has been pretty extensively documented, it was just impressive that it didn’t seem to care about us at all, and it seemed to be enjoying the opportunity to sit on its haunches on a sunny day, watching the ocean. Also, I’ve been writing about a lot of intense topics lately, and I wanted some fluff. So there.

The squirrel appeared to be either eating something or cleaning its paws; it was a bit hard to tell, and since I don’t have a telephoto lens, I couldn’t zoom in for a really good closeup picture of whatever it was doing.

As we stood there talking about it, it eventually reluctantly started to pay attention to us while it determined whether or not we were going to be A Problem. It looked extremely put upon in the process.

After this withering glare, we wisely vacated the area.

Hello there, Gentle Readers who also happen to be residents of Fort Bragg:

One of my neighbors had his van broken into on Wednesday night/Thursday morning while it was parked on Stewart Street. Whoever broke in took a substantial amount of musical equipment, which sucks both because he is a musician and he likes playing music and is attached to his gear, and because playing music is one of the ways in which he earns a living. So, if anyone happens to hear anything about it, he would heartily appreciate any/all info; you can contact me (meloukhia at gmail dot com) or the folks at the police department. In an ideal world, everything will be returned, and nothing will be the worse for wear, so let’s hope for that, ok?

I have been going to Harvest Market since 1985, when it opened. Yet, in the last couple of months, I have been treated incredibly rudely by checkers there who assume that I am not local. This morning, for example, I made a comment about the weather and how it would be nice to have rain, and the checker said, I kid you not, “it never rains in the summer here. If you were local, you would know that.”

My jaw actually dropped. Even if I hadn’t been local, that would have been an incredibly rude and condescending thing to say. As it was, considering that I know this checker has been seeing me going in and out of that grocery store for years because she’s been working there forever, it was extremely jarring. The fact that this isn’t the first time a checker has treated me like shit under the assumption that I am not local just made it all the more irritating.

What the fuck is going on here?

I think that it’s indicative of the growing tensions between locals and newcomers. I’m assuming that people think I’m not local because of my age, or perhaps because of the way I dress, although I was pretty shlubby this morning. But I am sick and fucking tired of it. I am sick of being treated like I am not local because I don’t pass some kind of “local” litmus test, I am sick of my local friends being treated like citidiots because they apparently don’t fit into the framework of what a “local” is by the narrowminded definition of some people up here.

I happen to think that a lot of the influence of outsiders is harmful, and that a lot of the people who relocate here are not respectful to the local culture, and are clearly not aware of what they are really signing up for when they move here. But that doesn’t mean that they should be treated rudely, and as I recently pointed out, it’s actually not possible to tell if someone is local just by looking.

What do I need to do, screenprint my fucking birth certificate on a t-shirt and wear it everywhere?

For many years, the residents of Fort Bragg, like those of many coastal communities, tossed their trash over the headlands. There was a designated and accepted dumping spot, and the garbage just sort of accumulated there. Eventually, someone decided that this wasn’t a terribly bright idea, and a more sustainable method of waste disposal was developed, but the garbage was left behind, creating Glass Beach.

Glass Beach is often touted as a uniquely Fort Bragg thing, but it’s really not. In fact, pretty much all coastal communities have a beach covered in old garbage. As the name suggests, Glass Beach has a lot of sea glass, old glass which has been smoothed out by the ocean. And, at one point, it was pretty neat. There was a thick layer of glass instead of sand, and it was fun to wander around and look at. And, yes, some people undoubtedly took a bit of glass away with them when they came, but the beach wasn’t well known, and glass rolled in from the ocean, so it evened out.

But then, Glass Beach started getting publicized and popularized. And now, the sea glass is rapidly dwindling. In fact, I went to take pictures, and I realized that Glass Beach looks pretty much like a beach again, with small chunks of material here and there which might be glass, or might be pebbles, at least from a distance. Rusting relics can be seen embedded in the rocks which surround the beach, which is rather fascinating, but I find it interesting that a generation of tourists has basically managed to accomplish an environmental cleanup all on their own, while destroying a site of historical interest.

I’ve heard people argue that since Glass Beach wasn’t meant to be covered in glass naturally, the tourists are doing a service. And, like I said, they basically stripped the site of all movable former garbage, which is a sense of environmental cleanup. But it’s also a destruction of history and heritage, and not long from now, people will be wondering why it’s called “Glass Beach” when there’s no glass. And as long as the former garbage wasn’t harmful, which I don’t believe it was (discarded containers of paint and solvents and stuff were way more of an issue, and tourists definitely weren’t cleaning that up), I kind of wish that it had been left in place.

What happened to Glass Beach kind of exemplifies everything that is wrong with tourism. Tourists discover a place which is different or unique or interesting, they tell everyone about it, and they destroy it. Sometimes literally, as with Glass Beach, and sometimes figuratively, by sucking the soul out of something so completely that there’s nothing left.

I don’t think there’s much that could have been done to protect Glass Beach. People want souveneirs wherever they go, and short of checking people’s pockets on their way out, people couldn’t keep tourists from stripping the beach of everything movable. But perhaps there could have been a sign, gently pointing out that garbage is not a renewable resource in this case, and that by leaving things in situ, people could have ensured that future generations would have enjoyed them.