![\"essex\"](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/essex1.jpg\" "\\"essex\\"")
<\/a>It\u2019s become an unpleasant Sunday-morning tradition for Luke Terpstra and his neighbors on Essex Street: greet the day, survey the damage and get down to the business of picking up the bottles, fast-food containers and trash left by revelers the night before.\n\u201cIt has to do with people parking on Essex who go to the bars,\u201d Terpstra explained at a recent meeting of the Hillcrest Town Council. \u201cThey come back, very loud, leave trash, car alarms go off\u2026 it tends to end around 3 a.m.\u201d
\nThe neighbors on Essex Street have been suffering for years from the spillover from the restaurants, bars and nightclubs one block north on University Avenue. The lack of parking on University causes many to park in the nearby residential neighborhoods instead.
\nThe issue came to a head at a town council meeting in May, when it was suggested that Essex Street be marked for diagonal parking to allow more cars. \u201cWe said, wait a minute, now you\u2019re going to turn it into a parking lot?\u201d said Terpstra. \u201cDiagonal parking is the first step toward metered parking,\u201d added Miah Sperling, another Essex resident.
\nSoon it became clear that the issue wasn\u2019t so much about parking as about the behavior of inebriated club-goers in the neighborhood.
\nAt a June 9 town council meeting, several bar owners were brave enough to face the crowd and hear their complaints. Nick Moede, owner of Rich\u2019s and Numbers; Chris Shaw, owner of Baja Betty\u2019s and Urban Mo\u2019s; and Alex Marin, owner of the Bamboo Lounge, all agreed to do what they could to keep their customers in line.
\nThey agreed to post signs asking patrons to leave quietly and be respectful of the neighbors, and Benjamin Nicholls of the Hillcrest Business Association said he would help create the signs.
\nMoede said his clubs employ up to 10 guards on busy nights, who try to keep the peace, particularly at closing time when some 500 or more people might be leaving at once. \u201cThose guards are responsible to see patrons don\u2019t get in fights or cause problems, and are quiet when they\u2019re leaving,\u201d Moede said. \u201cLegally, we\u2019re responsible for 100 feet from our establishment. However, our guards can\u2019t go beyond that.\u201d
\nMoede also cautioned the neighbors against jumping to the conclusion that the nightclub patrons were responsible for all the trash \u2013 the bottles and styrofoam containers more likely came from nearby liquor stores and fast-food places, he said.
\nAs far as parking, San Diego Police Officer David Surwillo, the department\u2019s community liaison for Hillcrest, said there is not really a parking shortage in the area. \u201cThe problem is people are unwilling to walk a block,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s about convenience.\u201d
\nSurwillo suggested nightclub patrons park in the large lot at the Department of Motor Vehicles on Normal Street, a block and a half north of University.
\nHowever, several in attendance questioned whether their cars might be towed if they did so. Numerous signs are posted on the building and fences that say: \u201cDMV State of California Customer Parking ONLY. Violators will be cited and towed away at owner\u2019s expense.\u201d
\nA representative from San Diego City Councilman Todd Gloria\u2019s office, Courtney Thomson, said the councilman was aware of the parking situation and has taken steps to clarify whether the DMV lot may be used by the public.
\nKatie Keach, Gloria\u2019s deputy chief of staff, later said the councilman is working with state Sen. Christine Kehoe to determine whether the lot could be made available to the general public \u2013 not just for nightclub patrons \u2013 when the DMV is closed. The senator contacted DMV officials the first week of June, she said, and is awaiting a response.
\nBefore his election, Gloria was successful in a similar effort with the Hillcrest Post Office, which now allows paid public parking on evenings and weekends, Keach said.
\nCarol Schultz, executive director of the Uptown Partnership, said she hoped people would not be too quick to begin parking in the DMV lot before the matter is resolved. \u201cMy concern is that if the lot is opened up, it be done on a managed and secure basis,\u201d Schultz said. \u201cWe should take this a step at a time.\u201d
\nIt was also suggested at the meeting that the club and bar owners encourage their employees to park on Essex since they, presumably, would arrive earlier and leave in a quieter fashion than the customers.
\nAnother possibility mentioned was to establish a valet parking partnership with the clubs. A suggested long-term solution could be construction of a parking garage.
\nMany at the meeting thanked the bar owners for being willing to consider alternatives. \u201cWe are trying to make ourselves accessible by being here,\u201d Marin said. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to do the right thing for our community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leslie Wolf Branscomb has been an editor and journalist for 27 years, writing primarily about politics and law for the San Diego Union-Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Associated Press and others.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Leslie Wolf Branscomb It\u2019s become an unpleasant Sunday-morning tradition for Luke Terpstra and his neighbors on Essex Street: greet the day, survey the damage and get down to the business of picking up the bottles, fast-food containers and trash left by revelers the night before. \u201cIt has to do with people parking on Essex […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1290,"featured_media":242688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"The Morning After Brings Misery for Neighbors","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-242687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}