State Cleanup at Aliso Creek Rest Stop Persuades Frazee to Halt Closing Plans

The much-maligned Aliso Creek rest stop off Interstate 5 near Oceanside will live on, but under the watchful eyes of the California Highway Patrol and Caltrans.

It is expected that Assemblyman Robert C. Frazee (R-Carlsbad) will announce that he is backing off his attempt to shut down the rest stop, situated 5 miles north of Oceanside, at a press conference today at the rest stop, sources in Frazee’s office said.

Instead, Frazee is expected to offer an amendment to the bill that called for closing the rest stop. The amendment would instead give Caltrans and the CHP greater enforcement powers, including regulation of the vendors who hawk goods ranging from sodas and snacks to plastic lizards on a stick.

Since the introduction of Frazee’s bill last March, both the CHP and Caltrans have stepped up efforts to clean up the rest stop.

The success of those efforts led Frazee to drop the fight to shut the rest stop down, sources said. The bill had been approved by the Assembly in May and was slated to be heard by the Senate Transportation Committee in January.

In recent years, the rest stop had become a haven for undocumented immigrants trying to slip past the San Onofre border checkpoint and a magnet for criminal activities, law enforcement officers said.

The busiest rest stop in the state had also become infamous for its carnival-like atmosphere, where both the rich and the homeless pause on their trek between San Diego and Los Angeles.

Last August, Eric Hazelgrove was sentenced to life in prison for the attempted murder of a catering truck vendor at the Aliso Creek rest stop last year.

“There were so many transients and so much criminal activity, plus the overabundance of vendors required additional enforcement. And we found a lot of people that were actually living (at) the rest stop,” said San Diego-area CHP Chief Clarence Tuck.

The stepped-up patrolling by the CHP and Caltrans since mid-May has resulted in the issuance of more than 1,400 parking citations, 1,200 traffic citations, the recovery of 19 stolen vehicles and the impoundment of another 100 abandoned vehicles, said CHP Capt. Ron Phulps.

Sheriff’s deputies also made numerous arrests for drug violations and assaults at the rest stop because of the increased patrols, which came at a cost of about $300,000 in overtime pay, Phulps said.

The governor’s office allotted an additional five CHP officers to patrol the area on a full-time, permanent basis starting Dec. 1, Tuck said.

Caltrans also has hired four permanent rest-area managers, similar to non-law enforcement security, to monitor the rest stops, Tuck said.

“With better regulation over the vendors there, along with our enforcement effort, we cleaned up the rest area considerably, and it appears now that it is a problem that we can live with,” Tuck said.

The increased efforts were a direct result of Frazee’s bill, said Caltrans spokesman James Larson.

“The Assemblyman obviously got our attention and got the CHP’s attention. We don’t want to close a popular rest area, one that has 7 or 8 million visitors a year,” Larson said.

Other estimates show as many as 16.6 million people visiting the Aliso Creek rest stop each year.

“There are a lot of people that have problems with that rest stop that spoke to (Frazee) about it, but there are all sorts of ways of resolving those problems. Closing it is one way, and trying to deal with it and make it work is another,” Larson said.