Council Panel OKs Extending Beach Booze Ban : Recreation: Trial ban made two locations safer, cleaner and quieter, residents say. The full council must approve expanding the ban to most other city beaches.

Impressed with the results of a trial ban on alcohol at a city beach and inland park, a San Diego City Council committee Wednesday recommended making those prohibitions permanent and extending the ban to most other city beaches.

With area residents saying that the test ban has made La Jolla Shores’ Kellogg Park and the North Park Community Park safer, cleaner and quieter, the council’s Public Facilities and Recreation Committee voted unanimously to extend the no-alcohol restrictions to other beaches stretching from Mission Beach to the city’s northern border. Larsen Field in San Ysidro also would be included in the ban.

“The beach has been returned to the families--it’s the best thing you’ve ever done,” said La Jolla resident Lewis Musser. “The homeless, winos, druggies and gangs are gone.”

Although the committee’s recommendation to extend the ban from Mission Beach to Del Mar must be approved by the full council in January, the panel’s 5-0 vote Wednesday demonstrated that a majority of the nine-member council favors such an expansion.

Under Wednesday’s action, the committee also will consider extending the ban to Mission Bay Park, as well as to other city beaches and inland parks, early next year.

The strong council support for extending the alcohol ban stems from the success of the experimental restrictions that began at La Jolla Shores and North Park in August. The six-month trial ban, scheduled to expire next February, was adopted after a proposed citywide ban on drinking at beaches and parks sparked a spirited citizens’ protest, prompting the council to retreat to a more limited experiment.

According to a city manager’s report, the ban has dramatically reduced noise, vandalism and litter at La Jolla Shores, its adjacent Kellogg Park and North Park Community Park.

At La Jolla Shores, for example, there was only half as much litter and trash over the Labor Day holiday as there had been on July 4, city maintenance workers reported. Similarly, the ban produced “marked improvements in park safety” at North Park, with a 64% drop in calls to police, a 75% decline in graffiti and vandalism, less gang presence and reductions in the homeless population, the report said.

“By all measures, the trials were successful,” said Terri Williams, deputy director of the city Park and Recreation Department’s coastal division.

Nearly 20 beach-community residents who testified at Wednesday’s hearing concurred with that assessment, as they urged the council to not only extend the current ban but also to expand it to other neighborhoods. In some areas such as Mission Beach, residents argued that the ban should apply not only to the beach itself, but to nearby streets as well to prevent rowdiness and other drinking problems from simply being pushed back several blocks into the neighborhoods.

“Mission Beach cannot tolerate alcohol any longer in public places,” said resident Pat Gallagher. “There can’t be any halfway about it. We’re dealing with an element that has no respect for public property, no respect for laws, no respect for anything.”

Since the trial ban took effect last summer, opponents have argued that the restriction unfairly punishes law-abiding individuals who responsibly enjoy an occasional drink at beaches or parks. It is fairer, they contend, to simply have the police cite people who are publicly intoxicated or overly rowdy than to forbid everyone from drinking in recreational areas.

Echoing that sentiment, City Councilman Bruce Henderson initially expressed skepticism about a broad expansion of the ban, arguing that “fair and quick punishment of offenders” is preferable to “taking the rights of ordinary citizens away.”

Seeking a “less intrusive approach,” Henderson suggested that any expansion of the ban to Mission Beach be limited to 15-foot strips along the oceanfront walkways--a proposal that was rejected as ineffective and unenforceable.

Others, moreover, argued that allowing alcohol at beaches and parks harms the rights of a majority of beach-goers, with loud beach parties and a small number of ill-behaved drinkers ruining non-drinkers’ enjoyment.

“The reality is that a majority of the people who come to the beach don’t drink,” said Bill Luther, president of the Mission Beach Town Council. “A minority of the users are ruining it for the majority.”

The only objection to the alcohol ban at Wednesday’s meeting came from two graduate students at UC San Diego, Daved Fremont and Laura Tedder, who said that beachfront residents’ complaints dealt more with crime and vagrancy than with drunkenness. Tedder also drew hisses and boos from the crowd when she suggested that many of those in favor of the ban “really are interested in raising the value of their property.”

Framing the issue, Councilman Bob Filner, the committee’s chairman, said that, although he sympathizes with the complaints that an across-the-board ban would outlaw even responsible drinking, such restrictions are needed to protect the public’s access to beaches and parks.

“We have red lights at streets, even though a lot of people are inconvenienced by them and people probably could pass safely without them,” Filner said. “In the interest of the general public, you need some safety guidelines. This is one of those areas where you have to give up something for the greater good.”