After taking to Twitter last week to announce that he would be moving his family out of Gavin Newsom’s California, as the state has turned into a crim-ridden dump under Newsom’s watch, actor Scott Baio appeared on Fox Business’ “Maria Bartiromo’s Wall Street” on Friday. During that appearance, Mr. Baio explained exactly how he and his family came to the decision to leave.
Speaking to her, he said, “Florida is pretty much what America was like 50 years ago. It’s just people hanging out. Everything’s wide open, it’s free, the people that I meet are all just nice.” Continuing, he then added, “And there seems to be no attitude down here. I mean, no place is perfect. But it’s just a different feel here.”
The Hollywood star best known for his roles in “Charles in Charge” and “Happy Days” originally announced his family’s decision to leave Los Angeles after 45 years in the Golden State because of the homeless problem in the city, saying, “After 45 years, I’m making my way to finally “exit stage right” from California. The most recent survey conducted by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority found approximately 69,000 people experiencing homelessness in L.A. County and 41,000 in the city in 2022.”
Speaking to Bartiromo, he clarified why the homeless population is such an issue in the city, saying, “Safety is the issue. If you don’t feel safe, it’s not worth living in the town that you’re in, because we didn’t feel safe… it’s become a city and a state where the victims are the criminals, and the criminals are the victims.”
On Tuesday, he retweeted his own April 20 tweet in which he said, “Living our best life in Florida,” and posted a selfie of him and his wife on the beach.
Living our best life in Florida. pic.twitter.com/bTIKUmZRmB
— Scott Baio (@ScottBaio) April 20, 2023
Speaking about how much nicer Florida is than California, Biao said, “It’s clean, you don’t see graffiti, you don’t see homeless [people]. So, it’s just fantastic.”
He added that he would vote for anyone who would fix things, but that Democrats don’t do that, saying, “I would vote for a Democrat if they were going to fix some of this stuff. I would. But I don’t think the other side would ever vote for a Republican to fix it.”
The crime situation in Los Angeles has grown particularly bad, as USA Today admitted in an article on the LA crime rate and how the homeless situation affects it, as Baio noted in his remarks, saying:
For years, Los Angeles residents, like many in communities across the country, have complained about growing crime – from catalytic converter theft to stolen packages, or far worse – and the impact on their quality of life.
More than three years after the COVID-19 pandemic began, USA TODAY took a look at the data to assess how much crime really has gone up and whether people are more, or less, safe than they were back in 2019.
Los Angeles saw an 11% increase in its overall crime rate in 2022, with 60 reported crimes per 1,000 residents last year compared with 54 per 1,000 residents in 2019. The data includes both violent crimes, defined by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to include rape, robberies, armed assault and homicide, as well as property crimes, such as burglary, arson and vehicle theft.
It’s impossible to discuss crime in Los Angeles without considering the city’s massive unhoused population, which by some measurements is the largest in the nation. Blocks of tents parked in green spaces and along sidewalks downtown and in more affluent Westside neighborhoods were allowed to remain in place during the height of the pandemic and ultimately helped fuel rising crime rates.
Featured image credit: Scott Biao Twitter
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