A Burbankian points us to a story in this week's CityBeat about the battle between Whole Foods and horse owners in one Burbank neighborhood over the location of a proposed 60,000 SF store. The horse people, who actually ride their horses around the area, are opposed to the store based on the expected traffic and the tendency of horses to get spooked by cars, vegans, bicyclists, hippies, and just about everything.
On any given evening, [neighborhood resident, Roman Gora] says, traffic – never light – comes to a standstill here while drivers queue up to enter or wind away from the freeway. “We’re already seeing cars cutting off horses. It’s dangerous, they’re animals, they get spooked,” he says. Gora charges that the proposed design, with its entrances and exits limited to two, setbacks trimmed to abut sidewalks, and underground parking structure to replace the existing parking lot, is a virtual recipe for further clogging the congestion. Add to that the cars which will use the existing bike/horse lane as an overflow option and that cyclists will likely increase in the vicinity of a Whole Foods. “Mixing horses, bikes, and cars is a disaster,” he says. God help the poor souls who try to build anything near the home of a horse owner. We've been to hearing after hearing listening to the gut wrenching pleas of horse owners who claim that anything and everything will spook a horse. However, the horse people say they will support the store if certain concessions are made, including a smaller store and "horse-only lanes on its periphery." Whole Foods has yet to respond, further spooking the horses.
· Horse Sense [CityBeat]