Council Backs SeaWorld Expansion

After hours of passionate public testimony, the City Council voted 8-1 Tuesday to endorse a controversial plan to expand the SeaWorld theme park, the city’s top tourist attraction.

The expansion proposal, one of the most divisive land-use issues in years, provoked a collision between the city’s economic dependence on tourism and its devotion to environmentalism, slow growth and open space.

Owned by beer giant Anheuser-Busch, SeaWorld wants to build a 95-foot-tall roller-coast-like “splashdown” ride, an education center, a four-story parking garage, a new front gate, and, later, a hotel.

The debate pitted a virtual who’s who of business leaders against a collection of neighborhood activists and environmentalists. What sharpened the debate is that SeaWorld, unlike most theme parks, is on public land, about 190 acres in city-owned Mission Bay Aquatic Park.

While the killer whales, polar bears and other mammals and fish will attract about 4 million visitors a year, SeaWorld officials said the park needs to expand to compete with other theme parks.

“We will have record attendance but we will struggle to make our budgeted profit,” said SeaWorld general manager Dennis Burks, noting that 600,000 of the 4 million visitors use passes or cut-rate group tickets.

Sal Giametta, an official with the Convention and Visitors Bureau, noted that the city, always loathe to raise fees or taxes on residents, has become dependent on hotel-motel taxes paid by tourists to provide services such as libraries, police and, someday, a new downtown ballpark for the Padres.

But opponents warned of increased traffic and noise in the Mission Beach area and decried the continued use of public land by a private company.

To applause from hundreds of opponents, one opponent played a portion of Joni Mitchell’s 1970 song “Big Yellow Taxi,” which has a line about “they paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”

“Your proposal for SeaWorld is asinine, hollow and corrupt, and you have no morals, but what is new?” said opponent Ron Broshun.

Opponents would like the park to be more like the city’s other top tourist attraction, the San Diego Zoo, with fewer concessions and no thrill rides. But council members said that it is unfair to compare SeaWorld with the zoo, which is run by a nonprofit corporation.

“Entertainment has always been part of SeaWorld,” said Councilman Scott Peters.

But Councilwoman Donna Frye, elected recently after years as a beach activist, said approval will mean further thrill rides in the future. “Once it starts, there’s no going back,” said Frye, the lone no vote.

Even with approval by the City Council, the dispute is not over. Approval by the California Coastal Commission is required.