Pier Group Smiling Again: Panel Backs Restoration

Charles Shafer took another swig of Stroh’s and scorned the puny half-pound halibut reeled onto the end of Crystal Pier.

“Look at them--all undersized,” said Shafer, a 20-year veteran of the pier in Pacific Beach. A 1983 storm swept away 260 feet of the pier and robbed fishermen of a prime municipal fishing spot. Since the storm, regulars haven’t seen the occasional 20-pound leopard sharks or 5-pound spot-fin croakers they used to haul in.

“I didn’t even get a fishing license this year; I’d have better luck in a fishbowl or down there at Sea World,” said Shafer, 67, pointing two miles down the beach.

But this week, the California Coastal Commission voted to allow the city to rebuild the last 240 feet of the 60-year-old wooden pier. The Federal Emergency Management Agency will provide $268,000, and the city will chip in about $140,000 for the extension. Construction will begin in August and should be finished by year’s end.

“What we plan to do is to build it five feet higher,” said Ernest Mittemeyer, city project administrator. “We’re building it higher because that end section is where the waves break when there is a storm. The pier broke up last time because the waves got under the boardwalk and lifted it right off. We’re moving it up to avoid the lifting action.”

Mittemeyer said the new pier extension will include a 40-foot ramp to reach the new elevation and will include a wide bulb-shaped platform on the end. The projected length is 240 feet, but the pier may be shorter or longer, depending on cost.

“We’re going to go out as far as the money can carry us,” Mittemeyer said.

The city spent $130,000 last summer to install new bracing, decking, paint and lights to the pier. The City Council approval for the extension is expected to be routine.

“I think it’s an excellent idea to restore it,” Mittemeyer said. “It’s a good spot for tourists.”

John King, 55, was on the pier Friday and having little luck compared to pre-storm days.

“I have a piece of the original pier wood on my filing cabinet at home,” he said, dredging up a “green bass,” a clump of seaweed. “I used to catch more fish than I could eat and give them away.

“Most of the old-timers have gone to the bay,” he said. “And the tourists who all come out here from Arizona bring all their equipment, and then they get disenchanted when they don’t catch anything.”

The seaweed, surfers and shallow water have diminished fishing off the shortened pier, and fishermen can’t wait to see the pier returned to its old length.

Bob Amon, owner of Pier Bait and Tackle, said, “Everyone around here is thrilled to death that they finally made the decision. It’s been pending since 1983, and all the guys who come here regularly are really anxious to see it go up.”

The extension also will be welcomed by history buffs, who would like to see the pier--which used to have a lavish ballroom at its end where the surf rocked the chandeliers--restored to its former stature.

John Fry, president of the Pacific Beach Historical Society and author of the pamphlet “A Short History of Crystal Pier,” said, “I think it’s great. I claim it is the one landmark we have.”

James Michael said when the extension goes up, he will walk to it from his home in Mission Beach as he did in the 1970s.

“This is a landmark out here,” Michael said. “It’s one of the nicest places in the La Jolla area.”

Bill Allen, who owns about 220 feet of the pier and 20 pier cottages, also favors the extension.

“I’m happy to have it rebuilt and have it as a landmark we want to keep,” he said. “We’ve been cooperating with the city by providing access. I just hope they get a decent contractor. That’s the key to the whole thing. If they don’t get someone familiar with piers and Crystal Pier, then there are going to be problems.”

Jim Bostian, pier manager, said the extension would be an improvement.

“Sure, it’s nostalgic and people like to stroll down it,” he said. “In 1983 after the storm, people came in here crying and saying, ‘What are you going to do, tear it down?’ There’s a long following of people who’ve come here 15 to 20 years.”

Some couples spend five to six months a year in the pier cottages. For example, Arnold and Hilder Smith, both in their 80s, have come for 16 years from Tacoma, Wash. They were the only couple that stayed on the pier the night after the January 1983 storm.

“It does something for the pier to have that extension,” Hilder Smith said in a telephone interview from Tacoma. “I think it’s wonderful.”

The pier extension is one of several improvements planned for the area.

Next month, the city will begin construction on an $800,000 improvement of the block abutting the pier, Ocean Boulevard between Garnet Avenue and Hornblend Street. Palm trees, a pedestrian mall and a sea wall will replace the concrete and dirt approach to Pacific Beach.

In addition, Allen plans to renovate cottages and to build a three-story office building to blend with the original archway where, in conjunction with an airplane stunt-flying exhibition and a nail-driving contest, Crystal Pier was dedicated in April 1926.