July 2010 Archives

My editor and I were playing around with Pasadena's crime mapping program this morning and noticed an interesting issue: there are no drug arrests listed in Pasadena. This link shows all the crime in Pasadena for July so far.

Compare that with Glendale from the same period:

All the pink hypodermic needle icons are drug possession arrests. There are none listed for Pasadena, but a whole bunch listed for Glendale.

Does this mean there are no possession arrests in Pasadena? I very much doubt that. It likely means the department is not logging those arrests into their crime map.

Those of you who read yesterday's post on the recently-opened Eastern Pasadena restaurant Plate 38 probably gleaned that I was excited to get out there and try the place. In fact, my wife stopped in there this morning for coffee and I poked my head in yesterday just to take a look. Tonight we planned to go there for dinner.

That's not happening. Unbelievably enough, the place caught fire this morning and, according to the Fire Department, is at a minimum a "major loss," and quite possibly, a "total loss."

The whole thing is just a terrible shame for the neighborhood, and of course, for the owners and employees of the eatery, which just opened last week.

I live in the part of Pasadena that looks less like Old Pasadena and more like the rest of the San Gabriel Valley: just south of the corner of Sierra Madre and Colorado.

Currently, the corner sports a strip mall and a Vons/Rite Aid with a giant parking lot.

But all that appears to be changing. First, this week the long-awaited Plate 38 opened in the strip mall on the northeast side of the corner. I call it long-awaited not because I claim to know about how other people in Pasadena feel about the place, but because my wife and I have been clamoring for a place to walk to for breakfast for the last three years, and we've seen the Plate 38 storefront for the last six months with an "OPENING SOON" banner.

I am looking forward to trying it, though I have noted it isn't exactly the cheap hole-in-the-wall option I am accustomed to: despite the small and casual appearance of the store, likes like most menu items go for $10 or more, not much by Old Pasadena standards, but quite high compared to the existing $5 burrito and sandwich stores that currently dominate the neighborhood.

Now, one restaurant can't turn East Pasadena into Old Pasadena, but the next changes are coming very soon. I noticed this morning that the northwest corner of the Vons/Rite Aid lot has been cordoned off for construction. The plan is to move the Vons out to the street, hiding the parking lot, and then adding additional stores that will line the sidewalk. The idea is to make the lot look like it is for pedestrians, rather than for cars. Observe below:

I don't really know how successful these changes are, but because I only use the area as a pedestrian, and not as a car driver, I am totally for them.

Today the county sheriff's department released its annual report for the first six months of crime statistics in 2010. The big news is that in all areas policed by the sheriff (including Altadena, La Canada Flintridge, Temple City, and Rosemead, among others locally) violent crimes are down by almost 4 percent, and homicides down by over 17 percent, compared to the first six months of 2009.

Property crimes are also down countywide. However, Altadena is not in line with the rest of the county- it has actually seen a 39.6 percent increase from last year, part of a terrible five year trend that has seen area property crimes go up by almost 70 percent.

No other station has seen an increase of even 10 percent. Pasadena, has seen slight increases, but only in the single digits, according to its most updated crime figures.

So what is going on in Altadena? We'll have an in-depth look at it tomorrow, but the short answer, according to Captain Steve McLean of the Altadena Sheriff's Station, is people are leaving their cars and homes unlocked, and burglars are having an easy time snatching valuables. The perception in the community, he said, for at least some people, is that the town is exceptionally safe and locking doors is not necessary.

The department has been trying to get the word out about the problem- back in April we wrote a story about a door-to-door campaign from the department to get people to take more care and keep a watch over their property and their neighbor's property.

McLean says the department has been making a ton of arrests, and that the number of crimes has begun to decline. We'll be keeping an eye on the figures over the next few months, and hopefully they will reflect those efforts.