Unruly behavior, unabashed drug solicitation largely defies solution

Ocean Beach’s latest brush with fame came last fall when Occupy San Diego was making local headlines from Downtown’s Civic Center. The eats and shelter at the downtown movement were too good to pass up among some from Ocean Beach — members of an able-bodied but aggressive group that has the search for free food down to a science. Even police recognized some of the neighborhood regulars on TV. One prominent local leader said that, with their absence from Ocean Beach by way of transplantation downtown, the difference in the OB neighborhood was physically noticeable. “Finally,” sighed Ocean Beach MainStreet Association executive director Denny Knox, “we had the beach to ourselves.” Just as Occupy San Diego shut down for the most part in the city center, so too did the regulars return to Ocean Beach. A Dec. 4 stabbing on Newport Avenue, which police said was perpetrated by a homeless man, serves as a case in point. Aggressive behaviors continue to undermine the civic pride that’s overwhelmingly a hallmark of the Ocean Beach neighborhood, according to some locals. But some merchants are saying the problem may now be on the decline. At the same time, Knox said, the dilemma is a symptom of a problem with national implications. The group defies statistics, Knox cautioned, because its members rarely commit crimes against persons and thus leave law enforcement at a loss for correlating numbers (2011 police department statistics reflect no homicides and 83 armed robberies or aggravated assaults through September in Ocean Beach, a neighborhood of about 28,000 residents). But the group’s requests for food, cigarettes and money are colored with aggressive language — and Knox said that homelessness, the usual catch-all explanation for such behaviors, may or may not be part of the equation. “I don’t care to call them ‘homeless,’ Knox said. “It’s not necessarily homeless. It could be, but it’s mostly young guys having it out with each other. It could be over drinking or drugs. Usually, they’re so drunk they don’t know what’s going on. We try to call right away and get them emergency services, but sometimes, emergency services come out [several times] in a week for one guy. Emergency services know their names, and they pick them up over and over and over and over again. The cost is astronomical.” Figures on the annual cost of repeatedly arresting, transporting, jailing and filling out paperwork on Ocean Beach’s offenders are unavailable. A 2009-10 grand jury report says the cost of these procedures for 90 people in the downtown area was about $320,000 at the end of 2010, not counting the cost to city government, which also has to pay for public defenders, prosecutors and court time. The cost in aggravation is perhaps considerably more. One Ocean Beach resident said he’s leaving the community, having been “panhandled out” after 3½ years. A bar patron cautioned me to watch my back as I sought more street-level information for this story. And Knox herself, who’s lived in Ocean Beach since 1966, was met with three or four “escorts” on her way to a Christmas lunch at an Ocean Beach restaurant, curious about the package she was carrying and asking for money. However, two recent walks down Newport Avenue reflected fewer panhandlers than in months past (this reporter is a former Ocean Beach resident who noticed an escalation of the problem about two years ago, when the San Diego Police Department started citing “aggressive panhandling” as a neighborhood characteristic). Young people still sit on public sidewalks, dotting the landscape with the ubiquitous guitar cases that double as collection plates. But more often than not, they’d begrudgingly obey the nearby merchants’ commands to disperse. Newport Farms Market sits on the corner of Newport Avenue and Bacon Street, arguably Ocean Beach’s busiest intersection, and near the spot on which the Dec. 4 assault took place. This time, the panhandlers were absent, and, uncharacteristically, the entrance into the store was unimpeded. “There aren’t as many of them now,” said a clerk who asked to be identified only as David. “It’s not like before. Maybe it’s because of the colder weather.” Spot checks at other shops and restaurants resulted in a similar response. “We’re starting to stand up for ourselves,” said Michelle Feirn, a longtime counter worker at Newport Avenue’s landmark Little Chef Chinese restaurant. “They’re starting to get the idea that we’re not going to take this crap anymore.” Still, the problem lingers. One merchant who declined to be identified said she’s met with aggressive requests for food or cigarettes some 15 or 20 times a day as she walks or bikes to work. “I’m surprised it’s not more than that,” Knox said. “The locals we’ve known for a long time aren’t usually that aggressive, and they usually keep to themselves. But there’s sort of this new younger crew that feels they’re entitled to everything that you have. People want an alternative lifestyle, and that’s fine, but don’t hang on me. I’m in my 60s, and I have two jobs. What’re you doing?” The Ocean Beach MainStreet Association has met with neighborhood and city officials many times regarding the problem, Knox said, with little result. “Pretty much,” Knox said, “what comes out of those meetings are requests for showers, bathrooms, safe places to sleep. They can’t even afford those downtown, where there’s a lot more money. That’s kind of where we’re stuck in the abyss.” Knox said the charities whose hearts are in the right place may be contributing to the problem. “When the churches come down and feed the hanger-outers,” Knox said, “[the transients] get on the circuit. They go from free feeding to free feeding. These are not families with children and all the tear-jerker stuff. These are guys who’ve made the decision to be here. They don’t want to have to change their clothes. I don’t know what to do with people like that in a free country. “I’m not sure how you effect a change,” she said. “It seems like the country hasn’t figured out how to deal with this, especially California.” The problem, Knox said, is nothing new to Ocean Beach, long known for its generous spirit and commitment to community involvement. But no good deed goes unpunished, as in the case of a downtown merchant who’d told Knox that those Occupy San Diego demonstrators had made their point. Despite his kindnesses, he lamented, the demonstrators’ disruptions might cause him to close his doors. “I had to laugh,” Knox said. “I told him that our panhandler problem makes us go through that every day.”