Issues in Del Mar Are Often Trend-Setters

Ex-Del Mar Mayor Brooke Eisenberg recently spotted a bumper sticker she says accurately describes her City Council’s scrappy attitude in tackling an array of national, state and local issues that sometimes seem pretty lofty for San Diego County’s smallest city.

It read “Think globally. Act locally.”

For years, the Del Mar City Council has established a reputation among its constituents as a no-nonsense panel ready to take on any issue--whether it’s a global statement of declaring itself a nuclear-free zone or something as conspicuously local as outlawing gas-powered leaf blowers.

This week, in typical fashion, Del Mar went to bat for its wild and domestic animals.

After hearing pleas from animal rights speakers, the council Monday night prepared to take its newest hard-line stand: becoming the first North County city to attempt to prohibit county animal control from selling for scientific research any pets picked up within its limits. The ordinance is expected to be approved next month.

And, on Tuesday, city officials threatened action after not being informed in advance that the Del Mar Fair Board had bulldozed a nesting area of the endangered California least tern for a new parking lot. The council vowed to continue the fight to save the birds.

“Sure, Del Mar is a little city,” Eisenberg said of the North County seaside town, whose 5,100 residents spread over nearly 2 square miles.

“We’re a little city sitting right next door to the sixth largest city in the entire nation. And we have a state fairgrounds within our city limits. So we get the gamut of big and small issues here. And we treat them with equal tenacity.”

Some outsiders, however, think of Del Mar as the oddball ordinance capital of San Diego County--a quirky town that has put its foot down on skateboarding, jet skis and campfires at the beach, and once tried to snuff out smoking in public places.

The jokes made about the city’s bold stands aren’t lost on city officials.

“Sure, some outsiders might find stuff here laughable,” said City Attorney Roger Krauel. “But you can be sure the Del Mar City Council members aren’t laughing.”

The city’s swift reaction to the fair board’s bulldozers was typical, officials say.

“We sort of march to the beat of a different drummer here,” said City Manager Gloria Curry. “We’re accountable to our residents. And no issue is too small or too large that we won’t take it on.”

And people who have taken issues before the Del Mar City Council say that at least in this town, they have a sympathetic ear.

“I know that in the press and in conservative circles, they like to portray Del Mar as the moonbeam city, that its politicians are out on Cloud Nine somewhere,” said Bob Melvin, co-founder of the Solana Beach-based Stop Taking Our Pets group who addressed the council Monday night.

“But there’s nothing oddball about Del Mar at all. It’s a progressive city that listens to its citizens. And most times, the decisions it reaches are way ahead of everybody else.”

City officials say Del Mar’s crackdowns on roaring leaf blowers, noisy parties and beach campfires stem from attempts to preserve the small-town atmosphere the city has fostered since it incorporated 31 years ago.

“We’re just health conscious here,” said City Clerk Patti Barnes. “People ride bicycles and jog and so they’re ready to preserve a healthy atmosphere here. They’re concerned not just about the rights of people but of animals, too. Our residents have lots of ideas of how to pass laws to make the city better. And we listen to every request that comes along.”

Like the homemaker who saw a television show on countries that had declared themselves nuclear free zones and decided she wanted to do the same thing in Del Mar.

Last year she brought her idea before the council, which in September passed an ordinance saying citizens could not “possess, use, test, repair, deploy or store nuclear weapons or their components”--even though there are no defense contractors in town and no resident had ever considered building such a missile in a garage or back yard.

In fact, 1989 was a banner year for get-tough ordinances in Del Mar. The year after officials banned skateboarding within city limits to protect pedestrians from skateboard collisions, the council did away with all fires on the beach to reduce rowdiness--adding to a set of shoreline rules that also disallow jet skis from launching from city beaches for safety reasons.

Last year, the council also voted to charge citizens for police and attorney time if sheriff’s deputies had to go to their homes more than once because of noise complaints. And officials outlawed all use of motorized leaf blowers.

“Del Mar is so small that it can handcraft its ordinances to do exactly what it wants them to do,” said Krauel, the city attorney. “It doesn’t have all the opposing factions to deal with like they do in larger cities.”

Krauel said the city did a recent overhaul of its code book “so that we don’t have any of those archaic ordinances that say you can’t spit on Tuesdays or park your horse in front of City Hall.”

All the laws are up to date, and citizens aren’t shy about making new ones, he said. “In Del Mar, people know where their politicians live, they see them on the street walking their dogs.

“And the City Council meetings are televised. Almost in no other city can you watch a city council meeting live and when you see something that concerns you, get in your car and get to the meeting in enough time to say your piece.

Del Mar’s reputation for trend-setting ordinances, however, has come largely from a proposal that never became law: an initiative defeated by voters in 1987 that would have banned smoking in all public areas.

The smoking ban, says proponent and former Mayor Richard Roe, received little council support. So Roe solicited the 600 signatures needed to put the matter before voters.

His idea was to ban smoking on public property, including city sidewalks and streets, except in a few designated areas. Roe says the ban would have been the most stringent anti-smoking law in California and possibly the nation.

“I’m tempted to bring it back before voters another time,” he said. “We’re trend-setters here. Sure, they made fun of it, called us elitist. But I got support from the (former) surgeon general, C. Everett Koop.

“Because in Del Mar, we pass laws that make us visible not only throughout California but throughout the world.”