Public officials, businesses and residents collectively launched a clean and safe program to remove trash in Pacific Beach and make the community safer, while offering the homeless a hand up at a Feb. 3 press conference outside Moonshine Beach on Garnet Avenue.
District 2 Councilperson Lorie Zapf hailed the efforts of Discover PB, the community’s business improvement district, which took the lead, along with civic leaders, in inaugurating the clean and safe program.
Zapf also made a contribution from her office, $20,000 in grant seed money for the new pilot program, presented in an oversized novelty check.
In comments, Zapf alluded to an email she got from an East Coast police officer who said he and his family would no longer be coming to PB for vacations after a recent bad experience with rowdy partiers and panhandlers in the community.
“We have to do something, we want them (tourists) to come back to this wonderful community,” Zapf said.
“We are proposing a three-pronged approach that includes cleaning, security and homeless outreach,” said Discover PB’s executive director, Sara Berns. “What we’re proposing here is something that will change the entire community. The goal of our clean and safe program is to create upward mobility for the unhoused, creating opportunities for them.”
Berns introduced hotelier Elvin Lai, Discover PB’s vice president and owner of Ocean Park Inn. Lai said he’s been seeking answers to making the community safer and cleaner after one of his patrons was hospitalized several years ago after an altercation with aggressive panhandlers.
Goals of clean and safe include:
• Sweeping and removing litter from sidewalks, right-of-ways, curbs and gutters in front of businesses;
• Removing graffiti;
• Emptying and maintaining trash receptacles;
• Having roving street team members patrolling the community on foot and by bicycle looking to help curb public intoxication and other unacceptable behavior; and
• Referring the unhoused to social services along with offering them employment opportunities.
Acting Northern Division Capt. Tina Williams remarked that “public safety is a shared effort,” while adding clean and safe “is a fine example of San Diego Police Department partnering with the community down here at Pacific Beach.”
Caryn Blanton, of PB Street Guardians, praised clean and safe for changing the community’s focus on homelessness from “a soup kitchen concept” to a “potluck concept,” wherein everyone contributes as well as benefits from working together to combat social ills.
Moonshine Beach owner Ty Hauter noted he deals with the homeless every day. He said he was pleased that “we’re all working together to help those unhoused individuals tackle their situation.”
Brian Curry, Pacific Beach Plan Group chair, said, “This is an absolutely exciting program.” Adding that “PB is forward planning,” Curry noted, “The homeless problem is significant and we want to help bring them into the fold by offering them opportunities.”
Marcella Teran, a Pacific Beach Town Council member who heads up PB’s Neighborhood Watch program, commented that the new pilot program will “present a more positive side to the homeless situation while bettering our community.”