Be careful what you wish for.
\nMany Pacific Beach residents waited a long time for new restrooms at Law Street.
\nNow that they\u2019re here, some neighbors are finding they can be more bane than boon.
\n“We thought they were going to be a nightmare \u2014 and that\u2019s exactly what\u2019s happened,” Doris Penman, who lives near the restrooms, told Pacific Beach Planning Group (PBPG) on Wednesday, June 24. “Transients are sleeping in them. Someone actually overdosed recently sitting on the toilet. There was drug paraphernalia all around.”
\nThe County Medical Examiner confirmed that the body of Daniel Marlowe, 37, was recovered in the early morning of Tuesday, June 9 from the Law Street restrooms. An autopsy on his cause of death has not been completed. No other information was made available.
\n“This restroom is a significant upgrade from the old ones, and they\u2019re more convenient for the general public during daytime hours,” testified another neighbor, Lynn Crossley, who warned, “This facility has become dangerous with transients using it at night as sleeping quarters.”
\nCrossley added the situation is complicated because the Law Street restrooms can be locked from the inside.
\nOther Pacific Beach community members are weighing-in about the problematic Law Street restrooms on the Next Door website.
\n“The city seems to be ignoring the problem,” said resident Paula Ryan. “It’s not just the normal homeless population down there anymore. It’s meth addicts and serious crime issues\u2026The city doesn’t lock the bathroom doors at night because of some ADA regulations. If that was a private property, the city would have been all over them with fines and legal actions to get them to clean up their mess.”
\n“My husband has found used needles there in the mornings (our toddler was steps away from them once),” said Sophie Hanna, of PB North Shore Highlands South. “I have noticed that there is much more bum activity there now that the bathrooms are open again. I wouldn’t say I am afraid, but every time I open the doors I really worry about what I will find.”
\n“Action needs to be taken to keep this particular area clean and safe,” said Jenny Nichols of North PB. “I was so excited to see the bathrooms being rebuilt, only to have to stand right next to a girl drugged out of her mind to get a sip of water while out on a run. Why must every ‘kid’ friendly area in PB (library, Fanuel Park, Law Street beach\/bathrooms) become overrun by homeless people?”
\nLarry Hesselgesser, San Diego Police Department\u2019s community liaison officer for the beaches, said police have been alerted to the situation.
\n“We\u2019re researching what\u2019s going on with this to see if we need to lock them (restrooms) at night,” Hesselgesser said, noting the final decision on whether \u2014 and when \u2014 to lock the restrooms will fall to the city\u2019s Park and Recreation Department.
\n“We\u2019ll have to have (city) employees lock it (restrooms) at night, but then they\u2019ll have to reopen them at a certain time, say 5 a.m.”
\nThe Law Street bathroom issue is expected to be placed on the agenda of PBPG\u2019s next meeting 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday, July 22 in the community room of Pacific Beach Taylor Library, 4275 Cass St.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Be careful what you wish for. Many Pacific Beach residents waited a long time for new restrooms at Law Street. Now that they\u2019re here, some neighbors are finding they can be more bane than boon. “We thought they were going to be a nightmare \u2014 and that\u2019s exactly what\u2019s happened,” Doris Penman, who lives near […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":271184,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11559","_seopress_titles_title":"Pacific Beach residents say new Law Street beach bathrooms dangerous","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11559,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-271183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beach-bay-press","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271183","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\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}