Yes, we know, San Marino, things are different there, and that it was ever thus. If every town in the San Gabriel Valley were the same, what would be the point of city limits?

We know that you have to park your cars in your garages there, not in the driveway. That your gardeners and contractors have to get those special decals at City Hall for when they park in front of your houses so that officers patrolling know they’re not just your average riffraff but are there by appointment to the carriage trade. That if you want to start a local free newspaper or other publication, don’t try to throw it on the walkway of a San Marino home — First Amendment notwithstanding, that’s against the law, son. That if a person wants to visit your lovely Lacy Park on a weekend day and isn’t a resident, he’s going to have to pay to play.

Riffraff, i.e., anyone who lives anywhere else than San Marino? You all dealt with that questionable element of humanity when wondering whether or not to have a local farmers market. Problem was, there’s every chance that if you’re selling vegetables, buyers from your San Gabriels, your Alhambras and, shudder, your El Montes may be attracted to the produce as well. Any way we can put a stop to that, Sam? Have to show local ID in order to bargain for aubergines? Let’s put that on the agenda, Pete.

And, yes, it’s always been made difficult on purpose to travel through San Marino by car, for outsiders. Plenty of streets between Pasadena and all points south just don’t go through, or not straight through, the town. It was an early version of traffic calming. Though San Marino long supported various versions of the Long Beach (710) Freeway extension, city fathers made quick work of killing a very early proposal for a freeway through their town half a century ago.

A bike plan to facilitate cycling in San Marino would seem to be less controversial, though. Bike commuters, outsiders though they might be, would hardly be drawn to most of the winding, circuitous streets in town. They’d either be on Los Robles or Huntington, and why not speed them through their short visit?

Wrong again, nonresident. As Staff Writer Zen Vuong reported recently, a draft plan by Ryan Snyder and Associates mapping about 27 miles of bike routes through San Marino that would mostly be a convenience to San Marinans was met with another anonymous mailer to residents worrying about the fact that you wouldn’t have to be to the manor born to wheel through. Somehow, the xenophobic writer was able to play into fears of bike-riding child molesters: the city’s schoolchildren would have to share the road with “bicycle commuters and other adult riders.”

And the writer even made up the wackiest scenario based on a misinterpretation of language in the draft plan: “After riding to San Marino, cyclists will be able to ‘freshen up, shower and change clothes’ in our schools and at Lacy Park.”

Not really. But being wrong is the wonderful prerogative of the anonymous propagandist.

If you want to live in a gated community, such places exist. If instead you choose to reside in a city connected to the hoi polloi through our interurban system of streets, they are open to those who would walk, cycle or drive them, along with your exalted self. You are free to look down your nose, silently, as we pass through on our Schwinns. You are free, I suppose, to call out an epithet: “Commoner!” But you are not free to stop us from doing so. That’s just the way we roll.

Twitter: @PublicEditor. larry.wilson@langnews.com