Edhat Staff
Mural painting on the side of EOS Lounge at 500 Anacapa Street (Photo: edhat reader)
By edhat staff
Local artists are painting a new mural on the side of EOS Lounge to honor George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement.
The art piece was designed by Griffin Lounsbury, a multi-media artist in Santa Barbara, and assisted by local tattoo artist Chad Green. It’s located in the 500 block of Anacapa Street and depicts a profile of Floyd with the words “Please, I Can’t Breathe.”
Floyd, an unarmed 46-year-old Black man, was murdered by four police officers on Thursday. While Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down on a city street during an arrest, a white police officer kept his knee on the right side of Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. Floyd was unresponsive for the last 2 minutes and 53 seconds.
Several bystanders recorded the event on their phones with one video showing Floyd repeating “Please” and “I can’t breathe.” The murder sparked outrage in Minneapolis that rapidly spread throughout the United States and eventually overseas with marches, protests, and rallies.
The local chapter of Black Lives Matter held a peaceful rally on Sunday against police brutality with nearly 3,000 attendees. During the march, the Santa Barbara Police Department taped off the 200 block of E. Figueroa Street where the department is located and stationed approximately twenty officers in riot gear near the intersection.
The protest leaders repeatedly stated this was a peaceful demonstration and asked the officers, as well as Mayor Cathy Murillo, to kneel in solidarity. They all declined.
Art like this needs to be in the face of everyone in this country, everywhere in this country, in every community. Any and everything to normalize caring about your fellow human beings.
This is awesome. Maybe we can replace the Chromatic Gate with a similar mural.
No building permit or review by the Architectural Board of Review. The City needs to enforce it ordinances and have this and the others painted over. – They were already reported to enforcement months ago. – The only “mural” program in the City is in the Funk Zone. When will people just follow the rules?
Wonderful art. Now put it somewhere where it is permitted.
@12:19 pm: your abject ignorance is staggering.
Learn to read.
Yes, but Gator Boy was not in such an in-your-face location. We need to memorialize the unjust death of George Floyd. The manner of his death deserves to be remembered and every major city in the USA should dedicate some form of remembrance to Floyd. This wonderful piece of artwork should be placed somewhere within our City. Putting up an unpermitted mural, however, is not legal and this needs to be removed until permitted and/or be placed elsewhere—–legally.
9:44 – If you feel so strongly, why don’t you save the City some work and “whitewash” it yourself? Please let us know when you do, so we can come watch! It would be fun!
For all you good and civic minded folks breaking an ankle to get to the ordinances relevant to painting a mural on the side of a building–
Maybe they did it without a permit. Sometimes, extraordinary times require extraordinary actions that may even be illegal. The law is never an excuse to support something that hurts people or by the action of following such law allows a person to be injured.
This doesn’t rise to that level, it’s not jaywalking to help someone having a heart attack. But it’s the same realm.
So take all your rule rage and permit concern and maybe channel it to something that actually matters.
Chip, dude, the fact that you are asking about the City “allowing” this mural to be painted is pretty funny. They started painting it like three days ago. Do you seriously think the City of SB has the ability or desire to respond to ANYTHING in seventy two hours?
Get back to us in six months.
so powerful. Rest in paradise George Floyd, your death will not be in vain!
If you are complaining about city ordinances and city rules regarding this beautiful mural you are part of the problem! Stand up for something!
We are standing up for something. A planned vision of architectural standards and following the rules for development.
I love it. I live 2 blocks away, and spent some time with Fido this morning checking it out. Lots of serious white men of a certain age (and facial hair) pulled up quickly to takes pics and then peal outta there. I like the addition to the neighborhood.
I am a socialist. I support planned development and process. This mural was not permitted. This mural was never reviewed and it doesn’t belong at that location. It simply needs to be moved and permits were needed before the mural was painted.
I am a liberal. Permits are required and the mural needs to be removed. Murals are allowed in the Funk Zone.
3:34 – I think you have really helped highlight the difference between the “left” and the “right” today. The “left” tends to prefer regulation and centralized planning, and values conformity. By contrast, the “right” values individuality and encourages free expression.
@324PM- You’re taking a stand for… architectural standards. Lol. The privilege!
Leave it there FOREVER!
Where is the mural for Justine Damond? No riots for her either.
People were bitching about a small sign in the funk zone and that you could see a sign through windows at a brewery last year on here. Probably the same people falling all over themselves supporting this. It’s a stunt for attention. Totally against Santa Barbara’s signage ordinance. I personally couldn’t care less. If it makes people feel better about themselves than great! Although if you need a mural to remind yourself… that may be the real problem, right?
@ Sac Seriously? Based on your posts, you’re smarter than that. Conservatives, or at least myself, Believe in less regulation, less government, and yes an easier permitting process among other things.
That doesn’t mean you can ignore the laws our government has imposed on us! We may not agree, but follow the rules!
@Alex Really? “The law is never an excuse to support something that hurts people” So you’re talking about a mural illegally placed on the side of a commercial building, correct? Please tell me I read that wrong.
Beautiful piece of art, thank you for creating it! If the city is upset by its placement, the people will have something to say.
Nice but his death has nothing to do with SB, please put up something more germane to the local community. Before the hate responses…… I was mortified by his death and believe the cop (s) should be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible. No reason to loot, protesting ok
I think it’s in a great place and much needed to remind everyone stop the hating.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t have had protests and murals for Ms Damond, but the George Floyd murder is different in that it was viewed for nearly nine minutes as it happened and could have been prevented. Ms Damond should not have been shot. But she was not shot for nine minutes on end on video, with four sworn officers willfully participating and onlookers begging for the officers to stop.
what about David Dorn? He was shot by looters last night trying to protect a business. The looters filmed it on facebook live. If you haven’t seen it look it up…Where is the mural for David Dorn?
Oops, there are deep deep roots of Black history in Santa Barbara and not only has it been ignored, it’s been erased. This is a small step to acknowledge that erasure and the ongoing movement of Black people’s rights. This has nothing to do with looting, the majority of protests are peaceful, it’s the police that are initiating violence.
If y’all think those folk should have murals, please paint some.
Ok. So are we going to dedicate all our walls to the injustices of society? Really? This is a bad direction to go. Will this be allowed just because we are afraid of the mob if we don’t do it? Let’s have walls with rape victims, and child abuse victims and murder victims of other races, and war victims, system abuse victims, and etc. etc…. Ya, we have enough walls. Let’s just make this whole town about victimhood. Because we are afraid not to. Hmmmmmm. That’s a whole ‘nuther kind of victimhood.
Wow. I’d be okay with more mural of survivors (not victims) if they were okay with the publicity. Why not recognize the people in our society who are normally hidden in the shadows? I don’t see the sense in your arguments at all.
It would be nice if Betsy Green or Neal Graffy would provide some background about the “…deep deep roots of Black history in Santa Barbara” that have been ignored and erased. Possibly the poster who mentioned this can provide us with the details that have been erased?
If you don’t think that this national event has anything to do with Santa Barbara, maybe that is because we are primarily Caucasian and Latino here and don’t have much understanding for racial problems in the US. The Indy ran an article on one of the black doctors in town recently and the problems he encountered- you might want to read that article to gain some understanding. Otherwise, keep up with your posts that seem to lack knowledge of reality.
You are the new law and order candidate. Someone else recently called himself that, I’m sure you are a big supporter.
@ 8:24 – I completely agree and you said it well. That is one of the main messages of a certain segment of our population and what various politicians push on a constant basis, namely, the “I’m a victim because of you.”
Mic drop
Tony Denunzio – very well publicized.
NOT permitted. If it were any other subject they’d be out there whitewashing over it right now…… let’s see how much the City bows to political pressure to allow something illegal to stay. You want the city looking like Lompoc, with murals everywhere, then fine, vote for it. But don’t allow this.
I don’t see it as a victimhood thing. I see the message as “let’s all figure out how to not let this happen again.”
Part of the point of art is to elicit emotional response, so this seems to be a successful work of art. I’m sure the building owners will be cited by the City, but the City has to follow a process. I don’t think they “allowed” this mural, the mural was installed with no approvals. As the City fights to have it removed, it will get more publicity.
Sure, I understand the commentary given the circumstances, but in terms of that particular spot, I think there should be a permanent memorial there for that poor bartender that got killed by a drunk driver at that same spot several years ago. I think about her every time I drive through that intersection.
Other unauthorized murals have taken months to be removed. Like Gator Boy. This one hasn’t gotten any special treatment yet. Stop imagining things.
Its a great piece of art but I agree with some of the others that it should not have been put up without permits.
I don’t agree with what happened but I also don’t think we needed this mural the size of a building for someone that’s not even local. Why don’t we do something like this for locals?
agreed it should be taken care and get permits if they want to do it all over again.
Agreed maybe if he was local I would feel a little bit better about it.
It was completely wrong what happened to him and I think everyone agrees on that but we really don’t need a mural the size of a whole building not to mention I bet its going to cause accidents with the amount of people going to look.
Sure are alot of racist people living here.
“Floyd, an unarmed 46-year-old Black man, was murdered by four police officers…” ///////////// Actually, only one was charged with murder, and so far he hasn’t been found guilty, so I don’t think we can call him a murderer just yet. I mean, yeah, of course he did it, but he hasn’t been FOUND guilty yet, so he’s not “officially” a murder. (Yet).
A lot of you are showing your white privilege. Anyone saying “this was a horrible event but…” is more concerned with permits than the blatant evidence that Black people are continually killed by the police in this country.
10:41 – boo hoo… the “rules” didn’t apply to George Floyd, so why should they apply to some paint on a building that reminds us ALL of what atrocities are happening to people of color? Quit your whining, at least you can BREATH.
to clarify – when I say the rules didn’t apply, I mean there are no rules that allow a police officer to kneel on a man’s throat until he’s dead.
“this has nothing to do with Santa Barbara” yeah, neither did 9/11. What happened to George Floyd was equally as devastating to our Nation. Most of these comments are so saturated with white privilege that I am left feeling like a need a shower. “You want the city looking like Lompoc” what is wrong with Lompoc? I doubt Lompoc wants to look like parts of Santa Barbara. I remember a time when it was Goleta that was dumped on and treated like the ugly sibling. This type of mindset, an ego based superiority complex is what contributes to social inequality and the continued oppression of P.O.C. You are offended by the mural. I just can’t with that. Really?! City Planning? The mural is a silent protest. I hope we keep adding them to every building downtown. Keep going until you people begin to understand, and when you finally do, I hope they remain so you will never forget.
Your logic is typical of a sociopathic tweenager. Grow up. What will your next logical progression be ?
Lots of racist micro-aggressions from commenters here. Instead of getting offended by this, take a minute and reflect, read articles by Black people, and educate yourself.
Rex, you are not able to come to a conclusion about something that we all have seem without our imperfect justice system telling you what to think? He might not be convicted, but he is definitely a murderer. Just like those cops that beat Rodney King were assaulters whether or not the Simi Valley jury agrees.
..This is America not just Santa Barbara, California we all live in America this was George Floyds home too not just yours…
You’re right, Pitmix. I forgot that in this country we’re presumed guilty until proven innocent. Regardless of what we know and saw, Chauvin must still be PRESUMED innocent until PROVEN guilty.
The sheer amount of white privelege and even racism on this page is staggering… and I’m as white as they come, but this town is full of pathetic over priveleged wankers. WOW. Just wow. No wonder there is not much good art here… all of you would have it permitted to death first, and the city would make sure that it was all whitewashed to be just a beachy landscape. You all should be ashamed of yourselves.
Bravo to the artists and to everyone who made this mural happen. It’s necessary and true. Nothing wrong with facing the truth. We need reform and change NOW.
boy… you are so offended by that. It’s uncomfortable, isn’t it? Thinking about all of the rape victims, abused children, murder victims, war victims, etc etc. Watching George Floyd die, suffer for 8 minutes is extraordinarily uncomfortable. You would not want to be reminded of it every day, would you? It has nothing to do with Santa Barbara, and how can a person enjoy our beautiful town if everywhere they looked, there was a picture of someone who was a victim. I hate to let the cat out of the bag, but everywhere you look there is a face of someone who has suffered in some capacity. Pretending it doesn’t exist makes you culpable, just like the cops who watched George Floyd die and did nothing.
The mural is from the heart. A solid reminder of Americans’ tasks at hand. My concern goes to the end of the article….why no comments on this???
“The protest leaders repeatedly stated this was a peaceful demonstration and asked the officers, as well as Mayor Cathy Murillo, to kneel in solidarity. They all declined.”
THEY ALL DECLINED???
I don’t know about the permitting process, but this mural is important to us right now. It helps us look internally at ourselves and at the open wound of racism in our society. It’s a visible reminder that we have so very much work to do–personally, locally, and nationally.
Interesting how many so called “conservatives” are here complaining about the permit process and how the artists didn’t follow the rules (ie government red tape) for painting. I mean, you guys are the same folks who are usually whining about their being too MUCH bureaucracy, right? Well, which is it? More government intervention in the arts, or less government intervention in the way we chose to live our lives (ie, taxes, regulation, etc)? You don’t get both.
Why did Cathy decline to kneel? Bad knees is not an excuse. I saw video of a police chief in NYC get down on a knee with the help of a few people. If she wanted to kneel, she could have. That she declined shows a MASSIVE indifference to the feelings of the people. Showing solidarity is all about the hearts and minds of the people. Make the slightest effort to show you care, not just about the injustice, but the optics as well. Take a knee, ask for help if it’s too hard. Cathy looked AWFUL in this and it won’t soon be forgotten. Glad she’s not my mayor! Paula Perotte rocks!
@11:57am – police officers throughout the nation have been kneeling with protestors. Lots of video and photos
12:16 – Right. Many cops and many mayors have knelt, but why not Santa Barbara’s? That’s the question.
Rex, I understand that being an older white man this doesn’t affect you. Stay in your white bubble and continue to grumble about broken sidewalks and noisy planes. Let the rest of us learn from the people of color in our community about the inequities they deal with on a daily basis.
If this mural is illegal without a permit, what it the city’s basis for allowing it? Does the city offer certain causes or certain classes of people special privileges? Does the city deny the same privileges to other causes and classes of people? What is the basis for doing this? I think a conservative would advocate for an objective rule for public paintings and murals that is enforced in the same manner for everyone regardless of their race, sex, religion, etc. I also think that a conservative would be highly skeptical of any rules or permitting requirements that restrict free speech and expression, such as the painting of murals. Perhaps the city should allow people the freedom to express themselves by painting their properties as they see fit without any restrictions or permitting requirements.
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial ‘outside agitator’ idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.” [MLK, Letter from a Birmingham Jail]
“You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city’s white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative.” [MLK, Letter from a Birmingham Jail]
Rex, legally he is presumed innocent until he is convicted. This is a legal construct. Morally we all know what he did. So you would argue that the lynch mobs in the south that we deemed innocent by the all-white juries were truly innocent in your eyes? Seems like a corruption of the truth to me.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/james-mattis-denounces-trump-protests-militarization/612640/
Ok Karen. Im sure you can program those hotlines into your phone.
This seems to be the “What-About” post. One crisis at time, please.
If you honestly don’t understand the point I’m making, just let me know and I will give you an honest explanation.
I’m not interested in the typical Edhat snark and point scoring.
What asshole downvotes this statement?
For those having a heart attack (“how DARE they make art without asking the city’s permission?!”), go read the Independent. The artists are already planning on painting over the mural in a few weeks. There, now you can go whine on some other thread…