For the last 50 years, fire rings could be found on every court and cross street in Mission Beach and on Mission Bay. However, in the last two years, fire rings now number fewer than 100 from an original 400. Not only have they decreased in total number, they are largely gone from the residential areas altogether, with residents having to drive to park areas or parking lots to enjoy sitting around a beach fire.
The disappearance is just one more casualty of the city’s bleak financial situation, according to Michael Behan, deputy Park and Recreation director for San Diego.
Behan, whose responsibility it is to oversee Mission Beach and Bay, said money for fire rings is not on his budget.
“The City Council cut the budget last year by 50 percent for this program,” Behan said. “We went from 300 to 150 [fire rings] on the ocean front and in Mission Bay Park. It was a permanent decrease from the budget. They cut the staff that provided the service that empties the fire rings and the money to purchase them.”
While a typical fire ring looks like little more than molded concrete and rebar, there are many more resources that go into maintaining the rings. As well as needing frequent replacing, fire rings require consistent policing, which also costs more resources. Another costly process in addition to the heavy equipment needed to lift the fire rings involves having to occasionally clean the sand within and near the fire ring. Cleaning involves transporting the sand to the city’s sand cleaning facility, where trash, such as broken glass, nails and other dangerous contaminants, is vibrated out of the sand before it is returned to the beach.
“It’s a lot more than people think,” said Behan.
The continual cost of all this is such that the city decreased the number of rings over the past two years and moved the remaining rings to locations that, they claim, are more accessible to all and is presumably easier to police, clean and maintain.
“For the most part, fire rings were removed from areas adjacent to residential areas,” said Dennis Simmons, beach manager of the City of San Diego. “The decision was made to go ahead and isolate them as much as was manageable to areas that were adjacent to parking lots and parks, so it made it more reasonable for usage.”
Simmons also cited a significant amount of residential concern and complaints about homeless users, wild parties and frequent, late-hour usage. These comments have been brought up in Mission Bay Town Council meetings as well, according to President Nancie Geller.
“Being that I live on the ocean, I can say firsthand that [bonfires] can certainly impact a community,” Geller said. “But if the time for the fire rings were abided by, I don’t think there would be a problem. The problem of it is they weren’t and there weren’t police.”
Mission Beach property owners are understandably frustrated at the lack of funds available to maintain fire rings, considering they are forced to charge and pay the 10.5 percent transient-occupancy tax (TOT) when they rent their property out, just as hotels do. Owners reason that summer renters paying the tax are cheated by the disappearance of the fire rings. Owners also assert that, since TOT funds are specifically for “advanc[ing] the City’s economic health by promoting the City of San Diego as a visitor destination” and “developing, enhancing and maintaining visitor-related facilities,” according to San Diego City Council Policy 100-03, money raised in Mission Bay should stay in Mission Bay.
However, TOT money is highly sought after and the dispersal of funds raised in a certain area does not stay there, nor is necessarily spent there. Money is instead designated by City Council to departments such as Park and Recreation and stipulated how that money is to be spent with an annual fiscal budget.
“TOT is a general purpose revenue. By council policy, the council chooses to allocate it in special ways. But there’s definitely nothing stating that certain amounts should go to Mission Bay or the amount generated in Mission Bay should stay in Mission Bay,” said Penni Takade, acting supervising management analyst for the financial management department of the City of San Diego.
Instead, TOT raised in Mission Beach goes into the city’s general fund along with other taxes and gets spent along the way ” it isn’t singled out and specifically allocated.
Faced with the sudden loss of fire rings in Mission Bay, concerned residents have formed the Save the Fire Rings Committee in hopes of raising awareness of the disappearance of the fire rings and persuading local government to allocate enough resources to reintroduce fire rings to their former locations.
After gathering public opinion, which committee spokesman Matt Breshnahan said was more positive than negative, with the majority of residents being somewhat ambivalent, the committee plans to speak in front of the City Council soon. Meanwhile, they currently have petitions circulating the neighborhood and claim to have more than 600 signatures so far.
“Provided that we get enough signatures, we could bring it before the city council, and then have the city council reconsider the issue,” Breshnahan said.