Is Downtown Ramona 'Walkable?'

Does Ramona have a “walkable” downtown?

Not according to Karin Johnson, who runs the Sun Valley Florist shop along with her mother, owner Sandy Gillespie. 

The shop has been in the same location at 758 Main Street for 13 years, Johnson said. Business in the shop has been dropping for the past year, she said, “although this past month it seems like it’s trying to pick up.”

“There’s no reason for people to come down here since they closed the post office and the theater,” Johnson told Ramona Patch. She indicated that the Ramona Theater’s reopening as with live entertainment was not bringing the business the shop had seen when the theater was a movie house.

Asked if neighboring businesses felt the same way, Johnson said she thought so. “We’re all hurting.”

Patch got a somewhat different view from Sandee Salvatore, owner of the at 734 Main. Salvatore, who said she’s been in business there for 15 years, doesn’t see foot traffic as the problem.

“On weekends we have plenty of foot traffic,” she said. “I’d estimate that between 80 and 100 people come through my door on each weekend day from Friday to Sunday.”

Salvatore said the problem is that while plenty of people come through the doors, they don’t spend any money while in there.

“People are putting money in the gas tank or in their mouths,” she said.

She traced the problem back four years to June 2007.

“That’s when the price of gas began going up,” she said. “It’s absolutely the economy and absolutely the gas prices.”

“The foot traffic is wonderful here,” said Kathy Jo “Nan” Brewer, owner of , at 638 Main Street. She opened the holiday-themed gift store there late last year. “It helps with the just a few doors down. We get a lot of spillover from them.”

"My sales have tripled in the last month,” she said. “I’ve got 28 new vendors in here now, each with a different product.” Brewer added that she’s expanded beyond the holiday-themed items she’d begun with. Merchandise there also includes jewelry, cards, purses and accessories.

Brewer did say Ramona residents are not her customer base, however.

 “I must say the Ramonians don’t pass Tenth Street, unless they’re going to their homes or to Julian. We get a few, but it’s few and far between. I get a lot of people from out of town, lots from San Diego,” she said.

“I used to run a salon here, and I died,” she said. 

Brewer said Ramona needs to have more community events like parades.

“Our little town’s going to die if they don’t do something.”

In previous columns on Ramona Patch, the owners of and the both reported declining business at their places and many closings of other Main Street businesses.

Patch got another perspective from Executive Director Craig Jung, who said the lack of business is due to the walkability problem. He believes traffic control and parking facilities could be solutions. 

“We are having trouble with foot traffic because we are on a main highway, with not a lot of parking,” Jung said. He spoke of efforts to promote downtown revitalization focusing on “trying to make it more of a walkable deal, like downtown Fallbrook. There’s not much you can do as long as it’a state highway.”