City Puts New Limits on Beach Drinking

Attacking a problem that one San Diego City Council member called “our own war on our own gulf,” the council Monday adopted an emergency ordinance banning alcohol an additional four hours overnight at city beaches and imposing 24-hour drinking bans at several parks and oceanfront boardwalks.

The council also hinted that further measures aimed at curbing alcohol abuse--including the establishment of beach-area sobriety checkpoints--might be considered later this summer to reinforce the actions taken Monday to, in the words of Councilwoman Abbe Wolfsheimer, “reclaim our beaches” from gangs and rowdies.

By a 6-1 vote, the council banned alcohol from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. on beaches stretching from Sunset Cliffs Park to the southern boundary of Torrey Pines State Beach, areas where drinking now is prohibited from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.

Under Monday’s measure, 24-hour bans on alcohol will be imposed at La Jolla Shores, the Mission Beach boardwalk and the boardwalk adjoining the Ocean Beach Pier. The total ban on alcohol also will apply to half a dozen parks, including Kellogg Park, Pacific Beach Park, Mission Beach Park, South Mission Beach Park, Ocean Beach Park and North Park.

“This is not a cure-all for all of the problems at our beaches,” Councilman Ron Roberts said. “But it’s an important step.”

As an emergency measure, which takes effect immediately, Monday’s proposal required a two-thirds majority--or six of the nine council votes--for adoption. With Mayor Maureen O’Connor adhering to her longstanding opposition to such restrictions, and Councilmen John Hartley and Bruce Henderson absent, the proposal gained the bare minimum of votes needed.

In a related vote, the council also unanimously approved City Manager Jack McGrory’s emergency action last week closing parking lots in Bonita Cove and Ventura Cove from 10 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. Emblematic of the growing violence on Mission Bay, McGrory’s decision to close the lots overnight came after two men were stabbed to death in a parking lot adjacent to the Bahia Resort Hotel.

It was the question of whether to impose an alcohol ban on beaches and parks, however, that drew the most debate during the council’s often contentious three-hour hearing Monday.

While ban supporters argued that the restrictions were needed to reduce criminal activity and unruliness attributable to alcohol, opponents characterized the measure as an infringement on responsible drinkers’ rights of dubious legality.

Earlier this year, a group called People to Ban the Ban collected about 30,000 valid signatures on petitions--and more than 45,000 names overall--to put a council-passed 24-hour ban on alcohol at city beaches and parks on the ballot. Rather than scheduling a special election that would have cost about $450,000, the council rescinded that ban last month.

Though city attorneys argued that Monday’s proposal was “substantially different” from the earlier measure--noting that it permits daytime drinking and applies to fewer areas--opponents described it as a circumvention of the referendum process. As a result, they may challenge Monday’s action in court.

“When the law . . . is inconvenient for you, you ignore it,” protested Linda Jo Hardison of People to Ban the Ban. “An alcohol ban has been rejected by the citizens.”

Similarly, O’Connor questioned the propriety of her colleagues’ action, saying, “That’s what it looks like to me” when asked whether Monday’s vote circumvented the anti-ban petition drive.

Stricter enforcement of existing laws against public intoxication could preclude the need for additional restrictions on drinking at the beach, O’Connor argued. That conviction was reinforced, O’Connor explained, by what she observed during late-night visits that she made to beach areas last weekend to get a first-hand look at the problem.

“Everything I saw, there are laws on the books to take care of it,” O’Connor said. “Of the people at the beach, 99.9% are good people . . . who like to have a little beer and a little wine. But we’re going to punish them, too.”

Wolfsheimer, however, likened the violence at the beaches--where police supervisors estimate that 80% of all reported crimes after 8 p.m. are alcohol-related--to the Persian Gulf War, hyperbolic rhetoric that was strongly seconded by beach-area residents who testified in support of the emergency ban.

“We’re going to win our own war on our own gulf,” Wolfsheimer said. “Our goal has been to protect . . . beach users from alcohol-induced conduct. It’s time to make our beaches safe for everybody that uses them.”

To complement Monday’s action, the council asked McGrory to examine the feasibility of adding several inland parks to the list of those where drinking will be restricted.

City attorneys warned the council, however, that restrictions at other parks could pose legal problems by bringing the new ordinance closer to the earlier ban, which could bolster opponents’ claims that the new ban is simply a slightly modified version of the one overturned by the referendum drive.