Our Readers Write: Puesto’s plan for outdoor space, Scripps Health cyberattack

Letters to the editor:

How ungrateful can Puesto be?

Puesto’s selfish demand burdens its business neighbors and the public (“Puesto La Jolla restaurant seeks to extend outdoor dining on Wall Street parking spaces for five years,” April 15, La Jolla Light).

The pandemic hit restaurants and bars very hard. Since the restaurants generally did not have the indoor space to operate within the social distancing guidelines, San Diego and La Jolla graciously allowed the restaurants to expand onto the sidewalks and streets, including parking spaces.

This was intended to be a temporary measure to help the restaurants survive the pandemic. Instead of being grateful for the accommodation, Puesto is acting entitled. It is taking advantage of the situation by seeking to entrench its control over the outdoor space.

Puesto’s demand for a five-year extension of a temporary privilege comes with a cost. Both the neighboring businesses and the public rely on the availability of parking within convenient walking distance as well as having passable sidewalks. If there are fewer places to park and the sidewalks become cluttered with tables, chairs and fencing, people will be deterred from visiting and patronizing the neighboring businesses.

Puesto’s disregard for others and the rules is telling. It is demonstrating now that it will not relinquish its control over public space at the end of five years. It has become dependent on excluding others from public areas so it can benefit from them. Other restaurants will follow the precedent set by Puesto and make similar demands.

Puesto’s exploitive efforts to take over the block must be stopped. Its demand must be rejected.

Marilyn Back

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Scripps Health kept too many in the dark

Regarding “State regulator ‘actively monitoring’ Scripps Health ransomware attack” (May 6 online, La Jolla Light):

As of Thursday, May 6, Scripps Health (Scripps Memorial Hospital, Scripps Green Hospital, Scripps Clinic) continued withholding information from patients, staff and donors regarding its cyberinvasion May 1. Since then, I and others had been unable to access medical records and our appointments had been canceled without option to schedule new ones.

While I can empathize with the horror of those responsible for protecting Scripps and its many stakeholders, I feel abused by the lack of information as to when my urgent medical condition might be addressed at Scripps, if ever. Do patients need to find new health care facilities? Should nurses be looking elsewhere for work?

We had been abandoned in the dark for five days and counting. It is time for Scripps Health to give stakeholders a credible appraisal of Scripps Health.

Was the cyberattack impossible to prevent? If yes, then this is a national emergency and we should be hearing from Congress and the president of the United States on the need for a program to make all hospitals cyber-functional without vulnerability to vandals, blackmailers and thieves. If no, was the foreseeable and avoidable calamity caused by incompetence or by a willful failure to invest sufficiently in security?

John Berol

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What’s on YOUR mind?

Letters published in the La Jolla Light express views from readers about community matters. Submissions of related photos also are welcome. Letters reflect the writers’ opinions and not necessarily those of the newspaper staff or publisher. Letters are subject to editing for brevity, clarity and accuracy. To share your thoughts in this public forum, email them with your first and last names and city or neighborhood of residence to robert.vardon@lajollalight.com. You also can submit a letter online at lajollalight.com/submit-a-letter-to-the-editor. Letters without the writer’s name cannot be published. Letters from the same person are limited to one in a 30-day period. ◆