A recent Malibu police report about a suspect allegedly pouring ice cream or cottage cheese on a car first amused me and then bugged me. It clearly shows that there is virtually no real crime in Malibu. So why, then, are there so many blazing outside lights on all these new houses?
Since I have lived here, I have reviewed the sheriff’s reports in both newspapers every week. The listed “crimes” are petty – there is no real crime in our fair city. So can someone – maybe realtors – tell the new people moving to Malibu and the designers and builders to stop lighting every square inch of their new “fabulous Mediterranean Malibu estates?” Every one of these large ugly cartoon houses, with all the grace and Mediterranean authenticity of a Taco Bell, are festooned with lights from one end to the other. Each fence post, ablaze with light, announces the suburban ideal of unnatural night skies for all.
From our windows, we have no trouble seeing big fat new homes marching over the hill from Kanan and to the north of Busch that look like showboats. The bright, unhooded lights ruin our dark skies-they shine from driveway lamp posts, tennis courts to garage doors and front doors. What are these people afraid of? Ice cream? Cottage cheese? Raccoons? Please give us back our dark skies.
Note to the Malibu building inspectors: It is your job to make sure new and old lighting is shielded and pointed downward. Apparently you are forgetting to enforce this when you sign off on these gross monster homes.
Have you noticed the armed guards driving and walking around the Ralph’s shopping area with pistols on their hips? We do not need armed guards who could accidentally kill a resident or a visitor. What could they possibly be guarding? Remember! No crime here, folks. Malibu Bay Company, get rid of the guard before he kills or injures someone.
Susan Tellem