It looks like the city’s voters may get to decide the fate of the beach alcohol ban come election day.
Beach community residents rallied around City Councilman Kevin Faulconer and Council President Scott Peters at the foot of Reed Street in Pacific Beach Tuesday, July 22 with signs in support of a permanent beach alcohol ban.
As if to symbolize a change from debauchery to democracy, supporters of the ban stood near the spot where a beach brawl broke out on Labor Day weekend last year.
The incident motivated Faulconer and the City Council pass the one-year trial alcohol ban by ordinance. The ordinance is set to expire toward the end of December of this year, Peters said.
City Council is set address the issue at the Tuesday, July 29.
Faulconer said the temporary beach alcohol ban has worked to improve the conditions of the beach communities in the district he represents.
“I think it’s [the ban] proven very successful today, and now I believe it’s the right time to let the voters have their say on this issue and I’m looking forward to that,” Faulconer said.
Several residents and community members weighed in on all sides of the issue.
Bob Craig, a Mission Beach resident and Mission Beach Town Council member, said the alcohol ban has “worked even better than we anticipated” while making the beach area safer.
John Greenhalgh, an off-duty lifeguard and longtime beach resident brought his teenage son and daughter to support the ban. He said his soon-to-be 15-year-olds now have an understanding of a beach life without people drinking heavily near by.
Greenhalgh’s 14-year old, Hannah, said she thinks it’s great that the beaches looked cleaner over the Fourth of July with less trash for volunteers pick up and that she didn’t understand the need to have alcohol at the beach.
“We like coming to the beach but we don’t like seeing it being trashed,” she said.
Julie Klein, Ocean Beach resident and business owner, said the ban has prevented intoxicated young men and transients from harassing people, especially young girls. She added that it’s made the atmosphere in Ocean Beach even more welcoming.
But not everyone at the conference agreed the ban is a good idea.
Pacific Beach resident Norman Monson said alcohol should be allowed on the beach but that council should pass tougher laws and larger fines to dissuade individuals from getting out of control.
Robert Rynearson, from FreePB.org which advocates responsible drinking at the beach, said in a later interview that the group has always supported taking the issue to voters citywide, even before Faulconer did. Rynearson was not able to attend the press conference.
He said that less people coming to the beach this summer leads to less trash and that the ban makes the beaches less attractive to tourists.
“I don’t think [the beach] is any cleaner,” he said. “I thought it was safe before and I still think it’s safe, so I don’t think it’s any safer. All I think is that the freedom and liberty of responsible citizens has been again infringed upon, and that’s really the main point.”
City Attorney Mike Aguirre also joined the discussion and came out to support the councilmen’s efforts.
“This is a political question that has to be accepted by the vast majority of people of San Diego to be successful. Putting it before the voters at a time in which we’re going to have maximum turnout I think is the fairest way to proceed,” he said.
The beach alcohol ban has been before city voters before. Citizens voted against an ordinance by a slim margin in 2002. That vote would have restricted alcohol only in certain sections of the beach.
After city council passed the one-year trial ban in November, Mayor Jerry Sanders signed the bill into law 30 days later.
In January, anti-ban groups failed to gather enough signatures to bring the issue to a citywide vote.
Since the start of the ban, police have reported an overwhelmingly positive reaction from families and residents visiting the beaches.