Letters to the Editor

Poor Security

I came to this CVS [596 Long Beach Blvd.] to run a simple errand. What I experienced instead was one of the most frightening and deeply disappointing moments I’ve had in a public place. I was physically struck – hit in the face – inside this store.

I immediately began calling out loudly for someone to call the police. There is a security guard stationed here. There were employees and other customers present. Not a single person lifted a finger to help me. No one called 911. No one stepped in. The security guard, whose entire job is to ensure the safety of people in this store, did absolutely nothing. I had to pull out my own phone, shaken and in pain, and call the police myself.

I have never felt so invisible or so unsafe in a retail environment. The complete lack of response – from staff, from security, from anyone – was not just disappointing, it was inexcusable. An assault happened in plain sight, and the collective response was silence. This location consistently attracts a chaotic, unsafe environment and clearly has zero protocols in place for protecting its customers when something goes wrong. A security guard who doesn’t act is not security, it’s a costume.

If you have any other option, please use it. Go to a different CVS, a different pharmacy entirely – anywhere but here. No prescription or convenience is worth your safety. I sincerely hope management sees this and takes real accountability, because what happened to me should never happen to anyone just trying to pick up their medication.

Maria Palomera

Destroyed Trees

The tree graveyard on Fountain Street, right next to an elementary school, serves as a visual for all the children to see how little adults care about the world they will inherit: the depletion of our forests and the destruction of our neighborhoods all serves as a welcome to climate change. What is the motivation for this? Money, for both the developer and the city.

The Beachcomber article refers to Linc Housing, who manages the project, as saying they are replacing these terrible “non-native, non-drought-tolerant, diseased trees” with native, drought-tolerant trees that will provide more canopy than before. This is a popular mantra chanted by developers and, as usual, is not true.

Linc Housing’s actual “Planting Plan” calls for replacing the 114 trees that were destroyed with only 97 new “trees” – 18 of which are bamboo (which is a grass, not a tree), and another 18 of which are borderline shrubs, bringing the grand total of actual replacement trees down to about 61 out of the 114: classic bait and switch tactics of developers, with no one demanding accountability.

Even their supposed commitment to helping the underprivileged is a transparent money grab, as affordable housing has become a bargaining chip developers use to acquire new development contracts. It’s well known that lower income neighborhoods often have limited access to trees and therefore worse air quality, and as a result their residents suffer worse health outcomes than residents of more affluent, treed neighborhoods. If Linc really cared, they would provide cleaner air by planting more trees, rather than depleting the number of trees in the neighborhood and furthering this epidemic.

And slowly or not so slowly the very air we breathe becomes more and more polluted in the name of progress, as we become more and more numbed by the destruction of our planet, starting with Fountain Street. Maybe we should listen and maybe we should care. Maybe then we would get mad enough to stand up to this corruption. Or at the very least, maybe we would regret.

Shakespeare said it best: “O pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, that I am meek and gentle with these butchers.”

Merry Colvin

Freedom: 250 Years

When I was 16 in 1992, my life changed when a drunken driver hit me. Freedom and driving laws are linked to ensuring public safety.

In 2024, California made 1,336 DUI arrests during their Fourth of July law enforcement period. They made 1,311 DUI arrests during the same period in 2025.

Sober driving protects everyone’s freedom. There is no legal “freedom” to drive drunk. Don’t enjoy America’s 250th birthday behind bars, in the hospital or dead.

If you see someone driving erratic on any road, notify the law enforcement immediately. They will stop that driver. Follow laws to stay true to the country we call home.

Lori Martin, Tracy, California