Emory Cove Dwellers Win Late Reprieve : D.A. Won’t Prosecute 29 Live-Aboard Boat Owners Who Were Cited

The live-aboard boat owners are still afloat in their quiet Emory Cove anchorage in San Diego Bay after a last-minute reprieve from prosecution Thursday by the San Diego County district attorney’s office.

The scruffy armada of houseboats has been anchored in the cove south of the posh Coronado Cays for years. For the past month, it has been under fire from the San Diego Unified Port District, which has issued eviction notices to the boat owners. The Harbor Patrol has also moved against the boat owners, citing 29 owners for violating the Port District’s new ordinance prohibiting boaters from anchoring in the cove.

The boat residents were to appear in South Bay Municipal Court on Thursday to answer the Harbor Patrol citations, but hearings were canceled after the district attorney’s office announced that the misdemeanor citations would not be prosecuted because they were not properly issued. Penalty for the citations were up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

“We’re really happy about this,” said Joyce Graf, who lives with her husband aboard a converted Navy craft in the cove. “They told us that we could tear our tickets up.”

Live-aboards were cited two and three times during early August, she said, but no tickets have been issued since Aug. 11.

‘Zoning Matter’

One Emory Cove couple appeared for an 8 a.m. arraignment Thursday in South Bay Municipal Court and were told that the misdemeanor charges had been dropped against all the cove boaters. A South Bay deputy district attorney told some of the boat residents that his office did not consider the matter a criminal issue but rather “a zoning matter,” she said.

“We are going to stand and fight,” Graf said. Only one couple has left the Emory Cove anchorage, “and they are ready to come back at a moment’s notice as soon as this matter is cleared up,” she said.

Michael Cowett, attorney for the Unified Port District, said that the District Attorney’s office had expressed displeasure with the port’s enforcement of their new ordinance but did not notify port officials that they would not prosecute until a few days ago.

Harbor Patrol Chief Arthur LeBlanc said that patrol officers have been told to stop issuing citations until the issue is straightened out.

Steve Casey, spokesman for the district attorney, said that talks between the agency’s South Bay office and the port attorney will be held “to straighten out this enforcement matter.

May Be ‘Better Method’

“The Port District passed this law (restricting anchorage areas in South San Diego Bay) without consulting with our office. We expect that the matter will be worked out after discussions,” Casey said.

“It may well be that there is a better method . . . than invoking criminal law procedures to handle this matter.”

Cowett said that he has hand-delivered information on the ownership of the boats--the major complaint of the county attorneys--to District Atty. Edwin Miller and expects to meet with him next week “and hopefully settle this matter.”

The Emory Cove contingent has sought to enjoin the Port District from enforcing the new law, which requires that all boats in the southern part of the bay be anchored in an open 80-acre anchorage off the mouth of the Sweetwater River, not in the protected inlets along the Silver Strand.

The boat residents lost their legal challenge in Superior Court and an appeal is pending in the 4th District Court of Appeal. They contend that many of the old craft are not seaworthy enough to survive the rough waters of the mid-bay anchorage and that some are not even capable of making the trip across to the new anchorage site.

Both Cowett and Casey agreed that the bureaucratic clash between the Port District and the district attorney’s office did not involve the legality of the ordinance but centered on the methods of enforcing it.