Is San Diego a ‘Hell on Earth’? Devil-May-Care Ad Exec Says So

If you love San Diego, Gary Beals wishes you’d keep it to yourself.

“Complain. Kvetch. Bellyache,” he advises. “When people call San Diego a Navy town, don’t correct them. Let them think the place is fit only for beer-swilling, overweight chief petty officers.”

Don’t misunderstand. Beals, who runs an advertising agency, has no plans to leave his hometown. But, as administrator of the newly revived San Diego Hell on Earth Club, he feels it is his duty to let out-of-towners know just how dreadful life here can be. Then maybe they won’t move in.

“Someone must stand up and protect innocent Easterners from brush fires, earthquakes, droughts, mudslides, drug dealers and smog,” he said in an April Fool’s Day statement. “This area is completely unlivable . . . (and) is not the bowl of geraniums it might appear to be.”

Beginning at the club’s first meeting April 13, Beals will seek to inspire like-minded sarcastic individuals to spread the word. He cautions that membership is “not for the humor-impaired.” But even the newest residents of America’s Finest City can join, as long as they pay $15 and adopt the appropriate attitude: “We’ve got ours--now raise the drawbridge.”

Those who join the ranks of the complainers will receive a laminated membership card and a copy of Wildfire, the club’s quarterly newsletter. Named for San Diego’s brush-fire season, the four-page flyer will include features such as the Loathsome Beast of the Month, which will profile the area’s pests, from fleas to houseflies.

The first issue warns that San Diego County is riddled with earthquake faults--and provides a map showing where. It also summarizes the club’s goals:

“We want to throw a wrench into the cogs of the power structure here. The sticky mass of self-serving real estate profiteers, wishy-washy politicians and others who think we really need to put San Diego on the map,” says Vol. I, No. 1.

It adds, “We will be a plague upon anyone who seriously believes San Diego needs to grow.”

Beals borrowed the group’s name from the original Hell on Earth Club, founded in the late 1940s by Dr. Roger Revelle and his buddy, the late Gifford Ewing, owner of La Jolla’s La Valencia hotel.

“They did it to counteract a furniture store owner who had formed a Heaven on Earth Club to try to bring tourists to the area,” said Revelle’s wife, Ellen, whose 81-year-old husband is recovering from recent heart bypass surgery. “Roger said, ‘Enough is enough.’ ”

But the real inspiration for Beals’ club is Lesser Seattle Inc., a spoof organization in Washington state whose motto is “KBO--Keep the Bastards Out.” Emmett Watson, a columnist for the Seattle Times, founded the group in the 1950s in response to Greater Seattle Inc., a group of boosters who began a slick campaign to lure businesses and people to the Pacific Northwest.

Beals supports the anti-growth--or “pro-shrink”--policies of his counterpart to the north, but says he does not envision the San Diego group being “quite as militant, bitter or . . . shrill.”

Still, Beals is quick to point out that San Diego is in far more trouble than Seattle. It has half a million more people and is growing steadily.

Recently, the Census Bureau reported that the city of San Diego has leaped ahead of Detroit into the No. 6 population ranking among U.S. cities--with 1,070,000 people.

According to 1990 figures compiled by American Demographics magazine, the San Diego metropolitan area has grown nearly 30% in the last decade. (Seattle has grown by only 15%.) Since 1980, San Diego has climbed five places up the list of biggest metropolitan areas--from 19th to 14th. (Seattle is 24th.)

Dal Watkins, president of the San Diego Convention and Visitors Bureau, said that, although Beals’ group at first sounded like trouble, it may prove to be an ally.

“I think what they’re saying is it’s a nice place to visit, but don’t move here. So, frankly, they’re helping us,” he said, pointing out that the bureau’s goal is to lure visitors, not new residents. “Actually, Hell on Earth is compatible with what we’re doing, as long as it stays tongue-in-cheek.”

So far, Beals has heard from a T-shirt manufacturer, a real estate appraiser and a television announcer, all of whom want to volunteer their services to stem the tide.

Upcoming events include a salute to Camp Pendleton, the buffer between San Diego and “the Big Orange.” Beals wants to thank the Marines for “the finest defense work they’ve ever done--protecting us from the onslaught to the north.”

Beals also has printed up some placards to affix to “Welcome to San Diego County” signs.

“This County FULL,” they say. “Please try the next county to the north or go back to Imperial County.”

When it comes to parody, only one topic will be off limits: other cities.

“No Cleveland jokes should be tolerated in San Diego,” the newsletter mandates. “Cleveland is a great place to live--please: live there.”