When I was selected for the Beach Alcohol Task Force, I thought it was proper to avoid comment in the media while we were meeting. Several task force members have now seen fit to give their versions of events, so I’ve decided to speak out because I don’t like what’s happening.
Before retiring, I was an executive in the aerospace industry and participated in numerous problem-solving projects. The first thing you learn in these sessions is to spend a lot of time reaching agreement on the problem. We all seem to agree that a persistently high crime rate is a bad thing and it needs to come down.
But what causes this situation?
I believe the primary cause is the over-consumption of alcohol, primarily by young singles, most often in groups that tend to encourage and challenge each other to drink more. Why does this happen? The reasons are the demographics of the three beach communities and the incredibly loose rules that encourage more and more young people to come here to get drunk.
One might expect that, in a community full of college kids and other young people, with lots of short-term renters and tourists, you would find very tight standards to discourage binge drinking. That’s what you find in places like Hawaii, Fort Lauderdale and Laguna Beach.
Here, the opposite is true. We have possibly the loosest situation in the country, certainly in California. We’re famous for it. If you think I’m wrong, talk to any cop one-on-one, and see if he or she doesn’t say pretty much the same thing,
We have scores of bars, many of which feature youth-oriented entertainment. We have free parking, not only on the street but in numerous lots maintained by the city near the beach that will hold close to 4,000 vehicles, plus buses that run every 15 minutes from two directions. We have lots of liquor stores, many also near the beach. We allow drinking on the sand. Everything encourages people to party, and not necessarily responsibly. I checked the billboards in the Mission Beach vicinity last week and found seven of 10 had ads for alcohol products. At least the infamous billboard, “Eight blocks, 44 bars, Welcome to Heaven” hasn’t reappeared so far.
Unless measures are taken to reduce alcohol consumption in the beach area, the situation will not change markedly, and I have repeatedly challenged the other panel members to explain how any solution that doesn’t reduce alcohol consumption would work. No one has taken up my challenge.
Instead, we have a laundry list consisting of more restrooms, more trash cans on the beach, more police, more code compliance, a drunk driver education program, designated drivers, plus some measures like expanding the community court and cracking down on house parties that were underway before the task force started work.
The list of so-called “action items” grows and gets a higher price tag every meeting, and it’s a safe bet that much of this stuff will fall victim to the city’s financial condition.
There’s not a single item intended to reduce the consumption of alcohol. There are two things that could do this: tighter standards for the bars and stopping beach drinking; both seem to be off the table at this point.
Strangely, the task force has spent considerable time absorbing information on the intricacies of liquor licensing and conditional use permits that set standards the bars must comply with to remain open. Yet when the list of “Initial Consensus Items” appeared there was nothing even suggesting a Conditional Use Permit procedure would even be further discussed.
Drinking on the beach has been a heartburn issue for me for many years. This month we were supposed to address this item, and I looked forward to a healthy debate on whether to have a beach alcohol ban as virtually every other SoCal beach community employs to keep things under control.
Instead, I was presented a prepared list of discussion topics which included whether to have the police set up a trailer between PB Drive and Oliver, and whether to increase the number of concrete barriers for lifeguard emergency access.
I’m not making this up; we actually discussed things the lifeguards and police are fully capable of deciding without our help. Perhaps the silliest idea on the list was the installation of security cameras to monitor the drunks on the beach. At the bottom of the list was a complete beach alcohol ban, as though that was the most extreme, radical possible measure.
We didn’t get to actually discussing beach drinking until after 9 p.m., and it got short shrift. Police Chief Bill Lansdowne’s absurd proposition that you have to keep drinking on the beach or trouble will spread inland as more people drink in bars and homes has been grabbed like a life preserver by several of the panel members, including the head of FreePB.org. I call Lansdowne’s proposition absurd because it’s demonstrably so.
Lansdowne’s position is exactly the opposite of his predecessor, David Bejarano, who came up through the ranks of SDPD and endorsed a beach alcohol ban. When drinking was banned at La Jolla Shores, the crime rate dropped 80 percent in the area and arrests dropped 43 percent, according to the Union-Tribune. No inland effects were reported.
You might think that the bans in place most everywhere else would have resulted in problems inland if Lansdowne were correct, but none of these bans has been rescinded.
Most recently, when the PB Block party was stopped last year as demanded by local merchants who had had enough, the party animals vowed to have a series of smaller block parties throughout the community on the designated Saturday, and police staffed up to deal with the anticipated melee. Surprise! It was just like a normal Saturday in PB. Lansdowne’s theory seems to be a bit shaky, wouldn’t you agree?
So, here’s where we stand. This task force is preparing to propose a series of measures, most of which have significant price tags, but we have not agreed upon a single idea that will reduce alcohol consumption one ounce! I don’t know what you call this, but I call it a farce.
” Bill Bradshaw is also a member of the Mission Beach Town Council.