LAGUNA BEACH : Beekeepers Required to Give City a Buzz

City officials have imposed stricter regulations on beekeepers while refusing, at least for the moment, to allow the trapping of pigeons, described by some business owners as a nuisance and a health hazard.

To keep track of bee colonies, which tend to multiply in spring, the council voted Tuesday to require beekeepers to obtain permits for their hives. Previously, only beekeepers with 10 or more hives needed to check in with the city.

While there have been no recent complaints of swarming bees, hives can become a problem if not maintained properly or if water is not available, Deputy Police Chief James Spreine said. In that case, he said, bees will “in large numbers invite themselves to peoples’ pools. . . . One lady came out to her pool and found a ring of bees in her pool, hundreds of them, which was very frightening to her. A bee sting, even to a person who’s not allergic, is frightening.”

Also Tuesday, the council refused to allow pigeon trapper John Bell to collect pigeons from the Union 76 gas station at Broadway and Coast Highway.

Bell said the birds are filling drains with excrement and causing fly, mice and lice problems.

Instead, the council asked city staff members to work with downtown business owners to find other ways to rid themselves of the feathered visitors and to clean up the mess they leave.

Belinda Blacketer, who owns a store near the gas station, said she too was plagued by pigeons when she first opened her business in August.

An environmental lawyer who does not favor killing birds, Blacketer said she tried shooing them with a fake owl, a slinky and rubber snakes.

“These pigeons are really not afraid of almost anything because they see so many things all day long. When I first moved in, they’d walk in the house.”

Finally, acting on a tip from farmers in Pennsylvania, where she had lived briefly, Blacketer slapped two wooden sticks together--and it worked.

“I did it three nights in a row for about five minutes each, and they never came back,” she said. “By the third night I’d gotten rid of all of them.”

But the birds simply moved next door.

Under the city’s plan, business owners will be asked to cap the tiles on their Spanish-style roofs, a common roosting area for the birds, Spreine said.

This is not the first time that Laguna Beach has had to deal with unwanted pigeons. In July, 1990, the City Council agreed to a trapping and relocation effort after Blair Roberts, manager of the Laguna Sea Cliffs Apartments, said he had exhausted his options in trying to rid himself of 75 to 100 pigeons.

The council agreed that the birds had become too attached to the seaside complex.

If the birds downtown don’t take the hint, the council could repeat that trapping and relocation.

“If it remains a problem, the property owners in that area should return to us,” Councilman Neil G. Fitzpatrick said.