As Election Day nears, the debate over Proposition D \u2014 the measure to ban alcohol from the city\u2019s beaches \u2014 has heated up, with both sides trading accusations of sign stealing, improper finance reporting and misleading statements. With the temporary ban set to expire in January, two groups have drawn a line in the beach\u2019s sand and are passionately working to convince voters to join their side of the debate. From their names, the groups seem almost indistinguishable. The San Diego Safe Beaches Coalition opposes the beach ban, while Safe Beaches San Diego wants the beaches to remain alcohol free. Scott Chipman, spokesperson for Safe Beaches San Diego, said the similar-sounding names are an attempt to confuse the voters. “We\u2019re disappointed they (San Diego Safe Beaches Coalition) would stoop to that tactic to confuse the voters, but we\u2019re not surprised.” Chipman said. The Safe Beaches San Diego website argues the pro-ban position. It says, in short, that alcohol at the beach encourages binge drinking, which creates a safety hazard and a lot of trash on major holidays. Stop the binge drinking and you stop the problems, Chipman said. But opponents say it\u2019s not so simple. Jacob Pyle, spokesperson for the No On Prop D campaign, said the city should enforce current laws against public intoxication and not impose more restrictive legislation. “We picked that name (San Diego Safe Beach Coalition) because that is what we want. We think PB is a great community but we always think there\u2019s improvements that you can make to make it a better community,” he said. “What we want are solutions that address the real problems and don\u2019t punish people.” Pyle said he was also part of Freepb.org. This precursor to the coalition stands for Free Parks and Beaches. The two groups have many of the same supporters. Pyle said Free PB has worked with the city to solve problems associated with alcohol on the beach for years to avoid a total ban that would benefit a few beachfront property owners. “The \u2018Developers and the $4 Million Beachfront Property Owners Committee\u2019 is what they should call themselves,” he said. Pyle points out that the Yes on D campaign committee has spent roughly $230,000 getting their message out to voters. According to city clerk\u2019s records, a majority of the pro-ban contributors registered in beach-area zip codes, including 92109, which includes Pacific Beach. Wave House Belmont Park, LLC alone donated about $15,000 to the “Yes” campaign. Chipman said that backs up his argument. “People who donate are people who are aware of the problems,” Chipman said. The finances of the No On Prop D campaign became the subject a recent Voice of San Diego article pointing out the two groups giving money to the campaign shared the same treasurer and the same political consultant, the La Jolla Group. The two groups \u2014 You Empower Our Community and San Diego Safe Beaches Coalition \u2014 spent almost $100,000 all together for billboards, mailers and other campaign materials. Freepb.org donated about $10,000 to the campaign. Pyle added that some money donated to the campaign comes from neighborhood markets and liquor stores that are against the ban. The campaign took another turn with a clone of Safe Beaches San Diego\u2019s website, reversing their pro-ban message by promoting the freedom to drink. The sites look identical, with the “Yes on D” side claiming the cloned site was created to confuse voters about Safe Beaches San Diego\u2019s position. Pyle said he doesn\u2019t know who started the copycat website, and a domain-name search only turned up the registrant\u2019s city as Bellevue, Wash. “People are doing all kinds of things against [Proposition D] that have nothing to do with our campaigns, that we\u2019re not involved with,” he said. But the most contentious issue that has come up has been the accusations of sign stealing. Both sides have accused the other of taking signs from voters\u2019 yards, with some disappearing the first night they are left out. Police confirmed reports of Pacific Beach resident Joe Wilding removing “No On Prop D” campaign signs from areas in Pacific Beach. Wilding, a volunteer for the city\u2019s Neighborhood Code Compliance Department, said the signs were in the public right of way near a tree on Thomas Avenue. The signs were turned over to authorities after the police were contacted, according to reports. Wilding said city law doesn\u2019t allow signs in the public right-of-way, including political signs, regardless of free speech issues. “You can\u2019t project freedom of speech out of bounds,” he said. “Walk the line. Don\u2019t step over it. Don\u2019t go out of bounds.” He added that he has been removing any signs he\u2019s found on public property and wasn\u2019t targeting “No On D” campaign signs. Though some police officers, lifeguards and fire officials have endorsed the ban, Mayor Jerry Sanders isn\u2019t backing either side. The “No On Prop D” campaign\u2019s website has an audio file of the mayor endorsing a partial ban on holidays but hasn\u2019t supported either side. “He (Sanders) has not endorsed either [side],” said Darren Pudgil, director of communications for the mayor\u2019s office. “The mayor will leave it up to the people to decide this issue,” he said. Any Prop D election material claiming the mayor\u2019s endorsement is false, he said.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As Election Day nears, the debate over Proposition D \u2014 the measure to ban alcohol from the city\u2019s beaches \u2014 has heated up, with both sides trading accusations of sign stealing, improper finance reporting and misleading statements. With the temporary ban set to expire in January, two groups have drawn a line in the beach\u2019s […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":280100,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11561","_seopress_titles_title":"Beach alcohol ban stirs emotionally volatile mix","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11551,11561],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-280099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-peninsula-beacon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280099","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=280099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}