2-6-96 -If the business can operate without drawing persons from outside the community to trade there, then it is an acceptable rural business. If they need a big-lighted sign to draw people off the freeway, like Santiago Square, AM/PM has, then they are not members of the community, and their businesses should be boycotted and closed.
For example one of the real gems in Acton's community is the Acton Meat Market and the Acton Market and I am sure we are slighting many others. They are small, but they have most things you need, not offensive in the slightest, and the Meat Market has better meats than you can get in the city markets. They don't even have lighted sign because everybody knows where they are.
This is an example of the businesses that are rural community needs. What we do not need is people that have to have freeway signs to draw people from the freeway to their businesses. In fact, any business with a large or lighted sign is suspected as not rural. That's what we do not need in our communities.
One must be suspect of some Realtors because you see cute little advertisements as I saw in the Country Journal for a house in Agua Dulce, "family compound or a home with rental units". It seems that Ms. Smith does not bother reading the zoning code and to her it is perfectly okay to advertise a violation of the zoning code. It is okay to add a bunch of rental units to rent to transients in the community. All just to make a dollar.
The key here is that the community has to pull together and make itself rural and keep itself rural, and it has to ignore these people who want to run the community in secret and not inform the community of the truth. These people are generally the business people in the community that have an agenda. This does not mean all business people are bad. Both Chambers of Commerce are suspect because of their agenda of pro- growth, increasing business and number of businesses. Maybe the residents should stop trading at Chamber members business until they change the chambers' attitudes.