I never actually thought this could be possible, and I’m still wary of the claim (can these people really not buy socks and paintbrushes?), but the report does make it sound like there’s a problem. I don’t really have anything to add, I’m still trying to make something of this. Still, I’d love to hear what everyone here has to say about a city with too much art…
I admit I haven’t been to Carmel in ages, but my impression was that while Carmel itself was small, it was hardly alone in the wilderness. You might not be able to buy socks in Carmel, but would you have to travel far in order to do so?
I can see how living in a touristy town stuffed full of galleries could be annoying. I spent part of a summer in a town that was known for it’s old-fashioned main st. Every shop looked old fashioned but most were filled with souvenier type stuff. Those places were relieved by old fashioned looking shops that sold art of sometimes rather dubious value. You just wrote off main st for shopping and went elsewhere. Long time residents all talked of how the town was horrible compared to yesteryear. You also tried not to smack tourists who thought it was okay to traipse around your yard and walked into your home. Private residence means stay out, sheesh.
I wonder if this is an issue in Eureka Springs, Arkansas? There really isn’t anything but restaurants and art galleries, there…
“That is because California law exempts tourists from paying sales tax on purchases they get shipped out of state…”
I’m surprised a state in the midst of such a huge budget crisis hasn’t rescinded this exemption.
We were in Carmel six months ago and sure didn’t recognize a problem with too many galleries. Course twern’t socks we were shopping for at the time.
And old-time photo shops that do weddings. I went there a couple of years ago to get some Victorian pictures in full garb taken of my wife, daughter, and I. I saw that they did weddings on the spot in what ever style you wanted (Old West, Civil War, etc). I laughed and asked the photographer how many on-the-spot period weddings they did that way and she said “About twenty a day on the weekend and ten or so on a weekday” :eek:. This was at a place that was the size of a typical botique shop and there were about five more in that tiny town. Sure enough, a couple walked in and wanted to get married just as we were finishing up. A year later, my father and now stepmother got married at one of the shops in the Old West style.
And you say there isn’t any diversity there?
Yep, Carmel is crammed full of galleries. Some have pretty nice stuff, and some have that “California otters, whales ‘n’ redwoods” touristy crap. All of it, IMO is vastly overpriced. I can see local residents getting a bit peeved if they must drive to some other city just to buy their groceries, underwear and housewares.
Oh, this sucks donkeys. A friend from college lived there and his family owns a clothing store. I did a search and find out that he died last month. 
Carmel is the epitome of twee, it would be good to have more varied stores there. But I think the market forces will sort things out, just so long as there aren’t any unfair rent-breaks for galeries and art stores.
This sounds uncannily like the Shoe Event Horizon, an economic principle mentioned in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe that ultimately ravaged a planet called Frogstar B.
Meh, Carmel peaked when I was born there. 
Thirty years ago I was stationed at the Presidio of Monterey, and visited Carmel several times. I liked the beaches best, beautiful white sand, not too crowded. Carmel itself was, as someone else has put it, “twee”. An artificial town, with special regulations(like no neon lighting), to preserve it’s so-called “quaintness”.
The gallery thing has grown up since I was there, but if they were given special tax privileges, then the town brought the problem on itself.
You know what’s kinda scary? Oklahoma City was like this, the last time I visited. Everywhere we went there were at least a couple more shoe stores than you thought there ought to be. Every other shop at the mall sold shoes, it seemed. A few years later the Federal building bombing. A few years more and 9-11. Earth may be Frogstar B, and our epicenter is Oklahoma City, not Carmel. Aieeee!
The complaint is not that there is too much art. No one is complaining, for example, that there is too much culture. The issue is the limited varieties of retail outlets that are reducing the quality of life for the inhabitants–often by selling kitsch that the official was polite enough to call art.
We have the same situation near me. At the southeast corner of (Cleveland’s) Cuyahoga County is a pretty little village named Chagrin Falls that began drawing tourists many years ago. In an effort to maintain their “lifestyle” (or something) they have limited the amount of growth in the business district and imposed architectural rules on the whole village. When I moved into the adjacent southern Geauga County 22 years ago, Chagrin Falls was the place where everyone from southwest and south central Geauga went to shop (since there were no towns in the southern tier of Geauga). In the intervening years, lots of retail outfits have opened up in the township adjacent to Chagrin Falls–often by moving away from the village. Now, it is getting progressively more difficult to do household shopping in the village and the citizens must now drive out to the surrounding area to make many of their purchases. (C.F. is not as desperate as Carmel, apparently, there are some food and pharmacy outlets remaining in town, along with a single hardware store and a single supermarket, but the newspaper runs stories similar to the one quoted in the OP a couple of times a year.)
Much to their - - - no, it’s too easy.