Parking and traffic are big downtown SLO complaints. They were in 1978, too
Yogi Berra once said: “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”
The Hall of Fame catcher for the New York Yankees was the master of the malapropism. His fractured phrases were amusing and often tapped deep wisdom.
The quote could apply to downtown San Luis Obispo. Most days I don’t bother with street parking and go for the garages. I do miss the free first hour the garages used to offer.
People complain about parking and traffic, but quick fact check, there have been 400 parking meters downtown since Nov. 5, 1947. (One cent would buy 12 minutes back then.) And seven new signal lights were installed downtown on April 23, 1963.
If you don’t like crowds, catch a bubble. Maybe cities aren’t the right place for you.
A recent clickbait story in another publication claims the downtown is failing. The Tribune published a reality check and found that the health of downtown is complicated, but the sky isn’t falling.
It’s not news that things are changing in downtowns everywhere. Online shopping and big box stores have siphoned dollars out of communities, never to recycle through the local economy in the form of local wages or taxes.
It’s not useful to get into a nostalgia loop about what used to be but instead start to visualize what is next.
One of biggest businesses ever downtown started small.
The store was founded as Marv’s Hobby, and the Laws bought it in 1958 or 1960 depending on which story is referenced.
Beth Law expanded the inventory from a trains and airplanes shop to crafts and art that would appeal to a broader audience.
As the store grew it moved three times, finally occupying the ground floor of the Masonic Lodge on Marsh Street
Big box competition in the form of Michaels, opened at Marigold Center in November 1998, but the owners of Law’s and Beverly’s fabric store said that they would find their own niche in the market.
By 2006, times were catching up with the store. Beth Law, at age 86 decided it was time to retire after 46 years of owning the business.
A story announcing the sale of the store Feb. 7, 2006, said sales were down 30% over the previous year and the owner said the business needed to migrate to the internet age, but given her age that would be a challenge for the new owners.
A group of employees bought the store, and they made a go of it for a while, but it eventually closed, and so has Beverly’s.
A downtown that had once had department and hardware stores, even a saddle shop, had to change with the times.
After retiring, Beth Law died Sept. 4, 2009, at the age of 90 after decades of civic involvement in addition to the business.
Michaels has since changed locations to Madonna Plaza, replacing Sears, and now faces competition from another big box, Hobby Lobby.
A little less than 50 years ago there were similar complaints about downtown as are aired today.
Linnea Walz wrote this story Feb. 2, 1978, referencing parking, traffic and the challenges to downtown business.
Downtown interests name leader
Beth Law, owner of the Hobby Center in San Luis Obispo, has assumed a new role.
In addition to being a businesswoman, mother, grandmother and community leader, she now heads an organization of commercial interests.
Fellow business associates in downtown San Luis Obispo have elected her their 1978 chairman.
Specifically, she is chairman of the downtown Business Improvement Area.
The BIA has for its motto, “If your business is downtown, downtown is your business.” And that’s exactly how Beth Law feels about it, too.
“We have two problems downtown which must be taken care of,” she said. “I foresee we’ll take care of the parking situation and the circulation of traffic this year. These are our two main problems.”
She said the BIA has a traffic and parking plan which will help solve the congestion downtown, if the plan meets the approval of city officials.
“Our major suggestion is validated downtown parking,” she said, “where the customer can have an hour or two of free parking for a validated ticket. The meters downtown have been here long enough ... especially in the lots. Yet the city must have revenues, so every business and property owner has to take his share of the responsibility.”
She feels many businessmen and public officials “don’t have the total thought.”
“The customer is the important one,” she said. “The customer will be here only long enough to do his shopping, while we’ll be here all day. So let the customers have the convenient parking.”
The late Dan Law and his wife, Elizabeth Mary Law, first came to San Luis Obispo in 1941 when Law was stationed at Camp San Luis Obispo with the Army. After the war, they returned to San Luis Obispo, and, in 1949, Law opened the San Luis Obispo Medical Clinic, which he directed until the Laws sold it early last year.
The Hobby Shop, which they renamed the Hobby Center, was acquired in 1958 from Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Adams. At the time, the store was where Green Bros. is located.
“I had been teaching pre-school and kindergarten, then stayed at home while the children were small,” Mrs. Law said. “In 1958, the last youngster started school and that’s when Dan said he’d heard the Hobby Shop was for sale. Neither one of us had ever been in business before, but suddenly we were. We bought it because we thought it would be a nice family business. And it is. All our children love the store.”
Mrs. Law said she was a “little scared” in 1958, but the store’s outgrown two moves ... first from the Higuera Street site to a spot where the Rexall Drug Store is, and finally to a portion of the ground floor of the Masonic Temple on Marsh Street.
When McMahan’s Furniture Store moved, the Hobby Center expanded last year into the remainder of the Masonic Temple’s ground floor. Law died last year, soon after completing the store remodeling and expansion project.
Mrs. Law said the Hobby Center basically has been her business. “Dan was my moral support, and he did all of the construction work inside the stores,” she said.
The entire family are hobbyists, she said. The Laws’ son, Dennis, is in law school in Sacramento. Their two daughters, both married, are Sandra Gillespie in San Luis Obispo and Charmaine Lyman in Los Osos.
Mrs. Law has spent 20 years in active Camp Fire Girls work, which, with store and family duties, has left her little time to spend on the macrame, painting and craft work she enjoys.
“And I have grandchildren coming along who take some time, too,” she said.
Although her term as leader of the BIA has just started, she already realizes her hobbies will get even less attention for the next year as she pushes through some of her plans for downtown improvement for greater customer convenience.
