Beach Festival No Fun for Residents
* It is time once again for the city of Ventura to promote its sideshow by the sea, the California Beach Festival. The public can’t go to the beach, however, and the residents of Paseo de Playa are locked up behind fences as though they were prisoners.
Residents and taxpayers of Ventura should be asking, “Who visits this outrage upon us every year?”
Moreover, when we the residents of Paseo de Playa are awakened in the middle of the night by drunken beach bums, the police are often unable to respond in time to quell the problem.
The police contend that they are short-staffed, working with the same number of officers they had 10 years ago. Why then were there two police cars patrolling Paseo de Playa in the predawn hours of Sept. 19? There are enough police officers to stand guard over the city’s fences and barricades but not enough time or personnel to respond to numerous pleas for intervention by the residents of Paseo de Playa.
The city needs to take the California Beach Festival to the fairgrounds and the Ventura police need to patrol Paseo de Playa every night with the same vigilance that was exhibited during the weekend of Sept. 19-21.
MARJA IRWIN
CRISTINA WILTSEE
PATRICIA A. MARTIN
Ventura
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