Midtown, beloved. Real nice paint.

Beloved Santa Cruz surf shop gutted by fire; blame falls on towns’s flourishing population of drug enthusiasts, “You got 5,000 feral human beings throwing needles everywhere, stealing garden shoes, rakes, anything they can.”

"It sucks to see stuff catching fire everywhere…"

Midtown says they’re all about “warm smiles, rad surfboards, good vibes, and cool apparel” or “rad smiles, good surfboards, and cool vibes” or some combination of.

Either way, it’s a happy place save for the structure fire. 

The shop, known for hosting locals and the well-heeled alike, was left smoldering.

Fire authorities labeled the blaze as “suspicious” (which sounds suspicious). 

Here are the details from the Santa Cruz Sentinel:

“The Santa Cruz Fire Department was able to control the two-alarm blaze within 20 minutes after responding to reports of a fire at 11:19 p.m. at the back of the Midtown Surfshop at 1126 Soquel Ave., according to a release from fire Battalion Chief Josh Coleman.

The fire and heavy smoke apparently extended into the single-story surf shop’s back storage area from the outside. Fire damage was limited to the rear of the building, with most inventory saved and protected from fire contaminates, according to Coleman.

There were no reported injuries in the fire, which authorities estimate did about $40,000 worth of damage to the business.”

Fortunately, fire fighters were able to save upwards of two-million bucks worth of inventory. 

Midtown wasn’t up for a chat (There’s an investigation going on, after all). But we did get some insight from local brass Danny Keith, owner of Santa Cruz Surf Shop.  

“Suspicious? Hell, yeah. But it’s not other shops trying to put them out of business. Midtown’s a good shop. It sucks to see stuff catching fire everywhere,” he says in reference to the frequent blazes set by drug addicts “tweaking out of their minds” behind stores and dumpsters across town. 

Danny loves Santa Cruz but is frustrated by the increasing drug problem, whose effects include the damage done to Midtown.  

“You got 5,000 feral human beings throwing needles everywhere, stealing garden shoes, rakes, anything they can.”  

“I want to help; I wish I could. It’s a horrible circle of life here in Santa Cruz for those people. It affects everybody.”

Just take a look at the back of Midtown for proof.

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Chief Hot stuff
Chief Hot stuff
5 years ago

You’ve never seen worse people in charge.

c4
c4
5 years ago

Happy Easter. Sound on

https://www.instagram.com/p…

Sellme fitzgobbins
Sellme fitzgobbins
5 years ago

Santa Cruz was a cunt of a place full of arsehole drug addicts in the 90,s when I spent some time there, doesn’t seem like much has changed?
No mention of foreskin dog spanking anyone either (or even commenting on the situation) which is kind of nice though..

Jimmy the Saint
Jimmy the Saint
5 years ago

What sort of cunt steals garden shoes?

ValiantScorn
ValiantScorn
5 years ago

Tweakers will even steal dog bowls off ur porch.

Jimmy the Saint
Jimmy the Saint
5 years ago
Reply to  ValiantScorn

What’s the going rate for second hand garden shoes? – Asking for a friend!

Steven Rees
Steven Rees
5 years ago

DM me!

ValiantScorn
ValiantScorn
5 years ago

I think the meth dealer inhales the meth, and then blows it into the liberals mouth in exchange for the shoes……

mine.mine.mine
mine.mine.mine
5 years ago

In the 80’s I saw the decline coming.. to many “cool” kids in too small a space. Santa Cruz. Great town of Bennington Vt. once shined. Kids moved in cause it was cool and the govt. gives them lots of stuff. the farmers of Vt, now roll in their graves as the kids get tattoos, party late, wake up late, do lots of drugs and many beg on the street.. Fucking dump with a good brewery on the river. Fucking drugs suck, but kids looking to be “cool” are worse. Parent your fucking kids people, or they end up being really shitty cunts. RIP Santa Cruz..

ValiantScorn
ValiantScorn
5 years ago
Reply to  mine.mine.mine

This is 100% due to Gubment handouts. Starve all beggars and put them on farms to work.

Derek Hynd's Missing Fins
Derek Hynd's Missing Fins
5 years ago
Reply to  ValiantScorn

You know corporations and Red states are the biggest recipients of tax dollar hand outs, right?

84092, 92673
84092, 92673
5 years ago

What I know is that’s not true. Especially post 2020 as all the Dem states locked down completely whereas wiser and more prudent Red states did so less and have suffered much less economic damage. This 2 TRILLION infrastructure proposal is loaded with Blue state handout $ (NY and CA major recipients). The handouts that red states do get are in the form of AG subsidies which are bad and should be ended.

Derek Hynd's Missing Fins
Derek Hynd's Missing Fins
5 years ago
Reply to  84092, 92673

Seriously? This is your level of argumentation? To pull out a bill that is 1 month old, while ignoring years and years of data to the contrary? Yeah, I’ll pass. But you keep drinking that right-wing kool aid.

Dung beetle
Dung beetle
5 years ago

The infrastructure bill is the latest outrage. They’ve run out of dr. Seuss and certainly can’t cover Matt gaetz. It’ll pass in a week or so

Kama'aina
Kama'aina
5 years ago

But there are different type of handouts. The ones that are ruining the beach towns of California are the ones that are designed to enslave the derelict not encourage safety and well being. We have the same issue here in Hawaii. There is no way to play the storyline out to it’s end and think that giving drug addicts free drugs and let them live homeless in the parks will offer the opportunity to enrich their lives and the town around them. For the record I do not like the idea that corporatists or big government are clean good or helpful to society no matter how much $$$ they offer to us regular folk in handouts. If left alone small communities will run themselves and take care of their citizens with more dignity and aloha in my experience.

Derek Hynd's Missing Fins
Derek Hynd's Missing Fins
5 years ago
Reply to  Kama'aina

Good points in here. In full agreement–we need mutual aid communities based on bioregional adaptation, with ritual that invites young community members into being adults, and shame for those who fuck over the community. Give meaning to life, and outside of looking for visionary experiences with mushrooms or LSD or ayahuasca, then doing drugs like shooting up with meth hopefully loses its entire appeal. Mental health struggles will also helpfully be addressed by a caring community that has a role for everyone to play. But all this requires work, and getting past the view that government is always bad, and “don’t tread on me.” Either we’re our brothers keepers, so to say, or we’re not. Means tough love at times, but also being honest about why so many are hooked on drugs, and why total lack of community is one of the reasons.

Kama'aina
Kama'aina
5 years ago

No easy answers to fixing our communities thats for sure. I know from when I was in need our state and federal programs only offered ways for me to rely on their systems but when I asked for help at a local church I was offered opportunities to contribute to the community that in turn put food on the table, roof over head, clothing on my back, and steady work for that all to continue. I’m not saying that government is bad but the way we rely on government instead of community is at times. Corporatist are bad though and have miss used the ideas of what the free market can give communities. My fear is that as we become more globalist in our thinking, purchasing, and work habits our roots in local community dies. Maybe most importantly our local culture dies. Leaving us with no connection to history which leaves us with out learning from our past. Aloha DHMF and mahalo for the thoughtful response.

Derek Hynd's Missing Fins
Derek Hynd's Missing Fins
5 years ago
Reply to  Kama'aina

Sending care to you and your neighbors. Sounds like they’re lucky to have you providing a good and humble example.

mine.mine.mine
mine.mine.mine
5 years ago
Reply to  Kama'aina

it has died in many parts of the world. simplest is Starfucks.. there are so many good coffee shops in the same town as that homogenized shit, and folks continue to pile in to the place… people just don’t give a shit.. they care about convenience… same as firewire.. to their own detriment and their kids. when was the last fucking time you saw a Starfucks sign at the local little league… never

c4
c4
5 years ago

Like your ideas about having the community help itself and its troubled members that end up addicted to drugs.It usually starts as innocently as the hight school football player breaking his ankle and getting a two week Vicodin script. Or parents that are out of town with bottles of pain meds in their med cabinet, only to be discovered by teenagers at a party.

It’s not all bad people that get addicted, the problem is how to treat it once it happens. Unfortunately the community I live in has changed for the worse. It has become a greedy selfish situation with parents not paying any attention to what the kids do and focus on their careers. We had parents pasting their kids faces on athletes bodies to get them into a good college.

Parents in my community have less integrity than their kids. there’s no more middle class anymore. its all undocumented workers that make the community function day to day, and aggressive parents that don’t really care about the community. They care about getting their kids into a good college.

Derek Hynd's Missing Fins
Derek Hynd's Missing Fins
5 years ago
Reply to  c4

Sorry to hear. Clearly not sustainable.

c4
c4
5 years ago

Not sure how its going to end up in the long run. Can it ever go back to being a functional healthy community? Not sure. So many factors contribute to the disfunction.

Whitefolkswithdreadsarefunny
Whitefolkswithdreadsarefunny
5 years ago
Reply to  Kama'aina

I don’t understand this “ruining beach towns” sentiment. All California beach towns have property values that continue to rise weekly. Obviously a lot of folks are willing to pay a premium despite any “feral, drug addled” humans that may be congregating nearby. The only exceptions are places way up north like Eureka, Crescent City and Arcata which have become halfway house towns for people getting released from pelican Bay. Oceanside, IB, Venice used to considered dumps but they are all now super expensive places to live. Poor, drug addled people are gonna hang out where the weather is nice and the bougie restaurants toss prime, half eaten meals in the dumpsters!!!

Kama'aina
Kama'aina
5 years ago

The places that were considered beach ghetto that are now elite play ground get that way on purpose. It starts when a small community looses it’s way and the sharks come buying up properties at slum prices to flip it to the upper middle class that fundamentally change the town (for the better being how bad they get prior to the change) just to sell when the market is booming. Like the point made earlier by mine.mine.mine that Santa Cruz was loosing it’s way 40 years ago. If it stays this way it will only be for the rich and the community will be gone.

mine.mine.mine
mine.mine.mine
5 years ago

https://www.voanews.com/usa…
its kind of a mix.. but i get your point

c4
c4
5 years ago
Reply to  ValiantScorn

Biggest problem is that they made possession of narcotics a misdemeanor in California. Once you a get a felony your life is permanently changed. No more renting apartments, no more getting hired by anybody. Maybe you can get a job as a dog walker.

Any smart drug addict isn’t going to stay in Ohio or wherever and rack up felonies. They also steal shit that’s under the $950 limit between a misdemeanor and a felony.

Thats why there’s so much low value stuff getting stolen.

Geoffrey Levens
Geoffrey Levens
5 years ago
Reply to  c4
c4
c4
5 years ago

I agree with the decriminalization of mushrooms and weed. People don’t steal mountain bikes to buy an ounce of weed . It’s the Speed and heroin that are the problem. People will do anything to avoid going through withdrawals.

Geoffrey Levens
Geoffrey Levens
5 years ago
Reply to  c4

Speed and heroin addicts mostly will do anything to avoid withdrawal. That’s why instead of ineffectually trying to arrest and jail them it might just be more effective to repurpose all the funds used for all that into making effective treatment readily available. “Readily available” means affordable and plenty of slots for them to fit into. “Effective” includes whatever psych and social help and education they need to find a useful and fulfilling place in society.

c4
c4
5 years ago

Mental illness in the homeless population is rampant. We’ve all seen homeless people arguing with imaginary beings. It’s heartbreaking to see somebody go through that torture. The love of my life fell victim to a speed addiction that triggered mental illness and paranoia. She kept accusing me of cheating on her and it was heartbreaking.

She quit doing drugs for fifteen years and had a teenage daughter. Two years ago almost to this day, she relapsed on speed and was killed trying to run across highway 101 in Marin County at 4am after being up for days. She had inherited millions of dollars and had nothing to worry about.

To answer your question I agree that money needs to be put into treatment and not into locking people up. Canada seems to be taking steps to try and deal with the problem in a more logical way. If a person has tried rehab over and over again and failed they are allowed to get Dilaudid out of vending machines so they don’t have to buy fentanyl on the street. That’s what’s killing people.

The government in America is screwed up and nobody on the right is willing to compromise on anything. It’s all about keeping your job and the trump twitter bullhorn has had everybody scared to make any type of common sense concessions.

Greebnurt Hurkurmurgurt
Greebnurt Hurkurmurgurt
5 years ago
Reply to  c4

That’s a gnarly story. Sorry to hear of her tragic demise.

c4
c4
5 years ago

I think today is the anniversary. I have to drive along the freeway where it happened almost every day.

rwvbwl
rwvbwl
5 years ago
Reply to  c4

your post reasonatez with me, hahaha!
this druggie, seen in a recent vid below,
is usually outta his mind, meth+heroin from what i’ve heard,
alwayz ridin’ a bike, with~out rust nor sand on it whilest sleepin’ in the rocks,
causin’ prob’s down here @ a fine beach in L.A.
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Fuckin’ non~surfin’ druggie kooks!!!
Lock him up, throw away thee key?
Or try to rehabilitate?
hmmmm…

c4
c4
5 years ago
Reply to  rwvbwl

There are completely dishonest selfish assholes that get addicted to drugs and there are good honest people that also get addicted to drugs. It dosn’t discriminate.

mine.mine.mine
mine.mine.mine
5 years ago
Reply to  c4

A buddy owns a business and can’t get the police to move them out from in front of his place in a strip mall.. they have handcuffed the police from enforcing any type of private property enforcement laws

c4
c4
5 years ago
Reply to  mine.mine.mine

I don’t even go to downtown SF anymore it so disgusting. I had to go to a Bed Bath and Beyond south of Market to pick up some some towels for a job I did and somebody used human shit to write “yuppie” on the big plate glass window at the front of the store. Live north of the Golden Gate and only go to SF on rare occasions. Sometimes I hang out at the Marin Headlands overlooking the bridge and talk to tourists. They ask me to take pics of them and I want them to have a good experience but damn it’s going to hell.

channelbottom
channelbottom
5 years ago

Just cancel all these drugs addict homeless bums.

Ignore their Tweet rants and don’t subscribe to their YouTube channels or lifestyle vlogs. Perhaps write some stern emails to their corporate sponsors and product partners.

Chief Hot stuff
Chief Hot stuff
5 years ago

Get Tyler on the case
She’ll get it sorted
Enuff is never enough

Derek Hynd's Missing Fins
Derek Hynd's Missing Fins
5 years ago

We getting another 20 Tyler Wright focused comments from you again today, Bexy?

Chief Hot stuff
Chief Hot stuff
5 years ago

Shut it down
BG five O

Otto
Otto
5 years ago

I knew this “Oldest Grumpiest Local” things would go to his head. I told DHMF that Negatron’s experiment had me as the control group and DHMF as the testing group.
I knew this would happen. Give the guy some “power”, and see what happens. DHMF is running amok.

Chief Hot stuff
Chief Hot stuff
5 years ago
Reply to  Otto

He’s no Stephen Hawking at math either
I could really see him as part of President Harris Gestapo Unit,

Greebnurt Hurkurmurgurt
Greebnurt Hurkurmurgurt
5 years ago

Too much muff still not enuff!

Whitefolkswithdreadsarefunny
Whitefolkswithdreadsarefunny
5 years ago

Of course you have 5000 “feral” human beings in Santa Cruz. The average rent is 2500 and the median house price is north of 1 million. It ain’t like the good ol days of the 80s and 90s. There were still 1000s of drug addicts back then but most of them could afford to share a house or room for a couple of 100 bucks per month. Even the “bad” neighborhoods in Santa Cruz are hella expensive now. The city could try to move em to Watsonville but the old school Chicanos and recent Mexican immigrants would not put up with that shit. UCSC has plenty of land. Maybe they should build some public housing combined with a social work/psychology/ drug treatment school. Then we would see just how woke those rich white hippie students really are.

c4
c4
5 years ago

Me and a friend rented a two story condo in Live Oak a quarter mile from the harbor for $500 a month split between us in 1984. 26th ave used to be fun back then.

Beef & Beer
Beef & Beer
5 years ago

Has Pete Mel got an alibi ?

P.S.
Considering that his YouTube channel with Kaipo is doing worse than the bi-weekly ‘Kazakhstan prostitutes & stepchildren dog grooming & flower arranging show’, and seeing as he’s not on the regularly paying wOsl circus comment circuit anymore, he may be trying to hobble the opposition and get more spending feet through his own surfshops front door…

Abscessed Llama
Abscessed Llama
5 years ago
Reply to  Beef & Beer

Or waiting for a check for that beast he paddle into..

Beef & Beer
Beef & Beer
5 years ago

Going by his viewer numbers he’ll be lucky to get a free burger voucher…

ValiantScorn
ValiantScorn
5 years ago
Reply to  Beef & Beer

I need to take a peek at ur yotoob history. You watch some unique sh!+


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