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Article reports San Luis Obispo downtown on the brink

October 11, 2025

By KAREN VELIE

A reporter details the ongoing decline of San Luis Obispo’s downtown including vacant buildings, less foot traffic, increasing prices and issues with paid parking, in SFGate’s “Heartbreaking: Once thriving California downtown is on the brink.”

In September alone, the article details closures of Branca’s gallery, Brixton, Antigua Brewing Company, Starbucks and Avanti.  Meanwhile, tariffs and climbing rents are leading additional business owners to pull up stakes.

The article includes allegations the SLO City Council’s missteps on issues such as paid parking have led to the decline in the downtown, with consumers headed to free parking downtown areas in Paso Robles and Atascadero.

“The city of SLO has admitted to some gaffes in the recent past, namely with its parking, according to SFGATE. “After deciding to significantly increase downtown parking rates in 2023, the city saw backlash from residents and merchants. Then it rolled the hikes back in the spring of 2024, and even apologized.”

 


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I’m absolutely sure that the recent tariffs are not helping the situation downtown BUT every single local here in SLO county knows that businesses were in decline far before 2025.


I’ve walked through downtown over the last five years and noticed a steady decline. It’s super sad as I was a local young adult in the 90’s when downtown was thriving.


PISS POOR city leadership along with highly inflated rent caused many businesses to pull up their roots.


Hopefully one day Californians will wake up and realize that the lib leadership they’re continuously voting for due to their loyalty to the ridiculous democrat party is not the same party it once was.


WAKE UP CALIFORNIANS. TIME FOR CHANGE BEFORE THE GREATEST STATE IN THE UNION BECOMES MORE APOCALYPTIC THAN IT ALREADY IS!!!!!!!!!!!


25

A nearly 10% sales tax on everything sold in the city is enough to make anyone want to close up shop. The City government is bloated and inefficient. City workers can’t even pay rent with the wages they get, so where is all the money going?


33

We stopped shopping in downtown SLO a couple of years ago. The parking hassles and costs were a big factor. Then there are the bike lanes which have often erased a lane for cars. These bike lanes are frequently deserted at all hours of the day. The city, in its commitment to bikes, decided to inconvenience thousands of drivers for the sake of a few dozen bicyclists. Chorro street from Foothill to downtown is a good example of the absurdity of the bicycles first policy. And on top of it all, the city leaders are usually not responsive to public opinion and wishes.


133

Paid parking sucks, especially when it’s expensive. Maybe go back to the old coin op machines and only in a few select areas.


As for me, my kids have grown up so no more fun trips to SLO for clothes. We live in the North County.


In the time since then, I started to pay attention to our local governments. I try my best to NOT spend money in SLO. It’s just wrong to support Communism. A change of leadership may fix the situation.


Paso & Atascadero take note: Charging for parking is a major part of this issue. Please remember that the tax payers already own the streets.


I truly feel that California is worth fighting for and we should work hard to get it back.


82

x2 on the coin op parking meters. I don’t mind paying a few cents for parking, but I hate using the new digital machines. Too complicated and a hassle when I just want to park and go….


10

Rents are upwards of $6-9K downtown. It’s no wonder why Peets and Coldstone left.


88

Um; that’s a tabloid… fake news :/ Whats next, quoting The New York Post? Lol How about sticking to legitimate news sources; pls and thank you.


-139

Reddit and all your friends that post on that platform are REALLY missing you.


You’ll get more up votes there sweetheart.


0

All these commentators bring up good points, but I would add another: the homeless. They leave trash and worse wherever they are. Businesses get tired of cleaning up their gross messes every morning, but our city leaders love them.


124

Ya, relocate the homeless to City Hall and the Police station.


15

This is a multi-faceted issue. People love to glom onto parking as a singular reason why downtown San Luis Obispo has been in decline in recent years. It’s much, much larger than that.


The damn near monopoly of commercial real estate owned by 3 private parties (families) have all escalated rent costs so high, that now even global corporation’s are backing out on their lease agreements. They have completely squeezed out the original “charm” that brought mom and pop small business into focus of the 80s,90s, and early 2000’s. $20k/mo for a lease does not factor into any business plan profitably that can be supported by the small business owner in a population of 50,000. It’s simply untenable.


Right behind that, are highly restrictive city counsel that need permits if you want to screw in LED light bulbs in the bathroom. The hurdles one has to go through to open a business is convoluted at best, highly expensive, and highly restrictive.


This and other factors has led to a steep, steep decline in new business innovation, new concepts, new people open to taking on the risk of starting business in San Luis Obispo. How many coffee shops, hair salons, breweries, wineries exist here? Extremely saturated with the same concepts with a different skin.


The over/under for opportunities vs risk is extremely out of balance, just ask anyone who has formed a business in slo the past 10 years. I truly believe why some of the classic staples that have been around for the past 20-30 years are still standing, is because their business model is strictly reliant on Cal Poly, and the tourism it brings seasonally. Without that factor, those will shutter as well.


It’s simple:

Surrounding cities are pulling away in terms of small business commerce because slo turned its back on them to cash in those Fortune 500 companies bottomless pockets, as did City Counsel.


Now, one by one they are pulling out of Slo and the city, and the commercial real estate owners will be holding the bag…full of shit.


Create a hospitable economic environment that allows and incentivizes small business owners to take the risk and prosper.


Get on board or don’t. Everyone else is doing it.


114

The Motel Inn, first motel in the world, is one fine example. Privately owned, and it’s remains sit idle, held hostage by a forbidding fence. Tourists might flock by this way if they could even stop by for a glimpse and perhaps purchase a few postcards. A bronze plaque mounted on the West side of the building facing the Apple Farm even says so. Horrible waste.


52

Don’t hold your breath! City leaders and their cohorts have no respect for historic buildings. The c.1845 Buitron adobe on Dana Street (next to the Oddfellows Hall), has been boarded up and left to rot ever since the previous owner generously willed it to the city to be a park in 1989. Our current city council and ALL their advisory committees (Cultural Heritage, Architectural Review, and Planning Committee) unanimously voted to cut down the lovely old trees and turn it into a 20-unit low income trailer park instead. Another horrible waste.


33

I don’t blame or hold at fault the City Council for being highly restrictive; I hold accountable the residents of SLO who voted for those council members. It is their voter base who wanted these overly restrictive policies. The council simply implemented them.


17

I don’t know if you realize, but the mayor and three of her council members are all people that have been associated with Cal Poly or still are. Blaming the residents of San Luis Obispo for voting them in is not right because there are a lot of transitional residents that come in the fall and leave at the end of spring that vote in our local elections and I’m willing to bet that got a few of them elected to their positions .I do blame the city government for some of these really bad ideas and their attitude towards the permanent residents.


9

This is exactly why my user name is incompingov. When there are no qualifications needed to be in control of local government, this is what you get.


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