With dozens of recent business closures at the Third Street Promenade, one comedian decided to take the bad situation and turn it into a drinking game poking fun of the failing strip.
Harrison Baum took to Instagram to share a video of himself taking a sip of beer for every business that closed down at Santa Monica’s Third St. Promenade.
The videoshowed Baum standing in front of the locations where the once-closed businesses stood shut and taking a sip of beer at each — consuming 38 sips and several beers in the process.
“There are a lot of people here, do you think they’ll be able to sustain business?” he asked after taking sip #19.
The Britannia Pub in Santa Monica existed at 318 Santa Monica Blvd for three decades but is slated to close at the end of July. Taco Bell Cantina will replace the iconic pub when its lease expires July 31.
The Misfit Bar and Restaurant, a softly-lit gastropub inside the city’s historic Clock Tower building, shut down in April this year after 15 years.
Big-name giants like Old Navy, Gap, H&M, and AMC have already packed their bags and bolted, leaving the once-thriving promenade a ghost town.
The Promenade stood as a premier Los Angeles attraction at the start of the 2000s, drawing in local families, tourists, and even famous figures. Celebrities were frequently spotted there; one visitor even remembers encountering Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, and Joe Montana during visits.
The famed publicist Michael Levine, a former Santa Monica resident who authored the book “Broken Windows, Broken Business: How the Smallest Remedies Reap the Biggest Rewards,” called the shutdowns “heartbreaking.”
“When you tolerate small signs of disorder — graffiti, loitering, unchecked vagrancy — you send a signal,” he said. “And people respond to signals. Customers go elsewhere. Businesses close. Investors retreat.”
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