San Diego Acts to Quell Unruly Beach Crowds

California beachgoers have been told not to drink alcohol, smoke or bring their pets to the coastal sands.

Now San Diego has added its own restrictions: no refrigerators, couches or coffee tables. None will be tolerated on the city’s three beaches. And between midnight and 5 a.m., fire rings must be snuffed out.

The ordinances are in response to complaints that unruly behavior has dominated the city’s 114 fire rings and trashed the coast with abandoned furniture.

The City Council unanimously passed the measures last week and will take a final vote this month.

Fire rings “happen to draw out a lot of people that are sometimes out there to not do good things,” said Lt. Manuel Rodriguez of the San Diego Police Department, which pushed for the measures.

“A lot of times, that brings a lot of people that congregate around, people that aren’t supposed to be drinking.”

Area residents -- mostly those who live in Ocean Beach, Pacific Beach and Mission Beach -- hope the measures also will curtail the nearly 500,000 people who gather for the Fourth of July.

On the holiday, residents and police say, beachgoers barricade certain areas and set up camp with old furniture. When the party ends, most of the furniture is abandoned or burned.

“That’s not what the fire rings were meant for,” said Robert Chubinsky, a Mission Beach resident. “They weren’t meant to encourage huge, large parties, not to burn their household furniture.”

Police say underage drinking and drug use have become more prevalent over the last two years and Independence Day increasingly difficult to control.

“What we’re trying to do with the furniture ban is balance some of the things that can be hazardous,” Rodriguez said. “Most of the time, they leave all that junk there.”

Rodriguez said police had to respond to 150 incidents in 2002 because of fire ring parties, almost four times more than the year before.

In March, some residents proposed a restriction on alcohol on the Fourth of July to calm the crowds. They said heavy drinking was a major factor in the rowdy behavior. But several citizens opposed the move, and the area’s councilman, Michael Zucchet, refused to propose it to the full City Council.

“The alcohol debate was so divisive and so emotional that some people resist any restriction whatsoever of any civil liberties related to the beach, period,” said Zucchet, who proposed the ordinances on furniture and fire rings. “They view it as going down the road of more significant privileges being taken away. This was a specific issue identified by police that was pretty noncontroversial to ban.”

Now residents hope these measures will help alleviate the crowds and promote a safer atmosphere.

“It makes it easier for people to have a place on the sand,” said Jim Moore of Pacific Beach. “It just makes it a little more enjoyable for people not to have a bunch of litter afterward.”

Bans, primarily those on smoking, have become more common on California beaches. The first coastal city to ban smoking was Solana Beach, near San Diego, followed by a series of other beaches, including San Clemente and Santa Monica. Most coastal cities -- except San Diego -- also ban alcohol.