SB Tourism Bureau: Post-Coital Palms Bad for Business

SANTA BARBARA, CA – The famously ramrod-straight palms of Santa Barbara are showing their performance fatigue, and summertime hotel occupancy figures are likewise drooping. Concern is growing that the flaccid flora will continue to negatively impact the tourist season unless something is done. “Believe me, this is not what you want to see when you go on vacation,” says local investment banker and Santa Barbara native Ted Johnson.  “We’ve got to fix this or visitors will move on to some other town whose boldly erect trees inspire frolic and discretionary spending.”

Several visitors from outside Santa Barbara confirmed the ill effect of the pointedly post-coital palms. “We find we must sitting a lot on a porpoise bench (sic) this year,” said Dutch visitor Piet Vogelbeen, who with his wife Marga has been vacationing in Santa Barbara for years. “We are looking to those trees and, ja, it’s making you a bit tired, I think.” But Tom Cruikshank of SB’s Urban Forestry Division questions the very premise that Santa Barbara’s palm trees need to be in a constant state of tourist-pleasing arousal. “Six million visitors a year. Okay? Six million. Could you remain steadfast in the face of something like that? There comes a point where a sympathetic local population says ‘hey, we don’t need to be in a constant state of readiness. Let’s give our palms a rest’.”