Several businesses on Betteravia Road in Santa Maria celebrated grand openings this year, including a fast food joint that helped solidify Mayor Alice Patino’s nickname for the street, “chicken alley.”
When Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers opened during the spring, it joined the likes of Chick-fil-A, Popeyes, and El Pollo Loco, each with a location on Betteravia. During Santa Maria’s 2022 State of the City Address, held on Oct. 26, Patino joked about officially designating the street as “chicken alley,” and listed Raising Cane’s among a handful of new businesses that have helped improve the city’s “health.”
“Our state of the city, I think, is healthy and we want to get healthier,” said Patino, who gave shout-outs to Juice It Up!, Crumbl Cookies, Guitar Center, and other businesses that opened during 2022 in the Enos Ranch Business Center on Betteravia.
The mayor’s address also included comments about Main Street and Broadway, and the city’s ongoing struggle to make both streets more “pedestrian-friendly,” while revitalizing Santa Maria’s downtown area with new restaurants, retail shops, and entertainment venues.
The city is currently working with developers to bring new housing opportunities to downtown Santa Maria as well, including the Vernon Property Group, which purchased the former Fallas department store building and plans to convert it into a three-story apartment complex.
“The downtown revitalization is happening. I know I’ve been saying it’s happening for a long time. But we have 135 and 166 intersecting. They’re both state highways, so we have to work with Caltrans,” Patino said. “If there’s anyone from Caltrans here, please don’t be offended, but they just don’t move real fast. Santa Maria government moves pretty fast. When we decide we want to do something, we get it done.
“That certainly isn’t the same with Caltrans,” she continued. “We have to get Caltrans’ permission and it depends who’s up there that wants to give us the permission, because if it’s a guy that loves roundabouts, boy, you’re dead in the water when you try to get anything else done.”
Patino said that state officials are also to blame for slowing down the construction of a new DMV facility in Santa Maria.
“I’ve been saying this for years, but we have a new DMV office coming in,” Patino said. “Every time I call to ask—I used to ask our state senator, and it was like every time I asked her, it was like that was the first time I had ever asked her and she would tell her aide to find out and get back to me.
“This goes on all the time and I keep asking our representatives and I don’t get an answer,” the mayor added. “So, supposedly our new DMV will be built. We will see.”
This article appears in Nov 3-9, 2022.
