CoViD-19: City of San Diego Furthers Beach, Park, and Trail Closures

Mission Trails Regional Park is on of many closed due to COVID-19 (photo from January 2020)

I have directed the @CityofSanDiego to move forward with closing all City-owned parks, beaches and trails. There were far too many ignoring physical distancing rules this weekend. The actions of a few can cost the lives of many. Please stay at home, San Diego.

— Kevin Faulconer (@Kevin_Faulconer) March 23, 2020

"This weekend, in response to numerous reports of gatherings at parks and beaches, gatherings both large and small, we closed down City owned parkings lots around beaches, parks, and trails. Now I am directing City of San Diego staff to move forward with the closure of all parks, beaches, boardwalks, bays, city lakes, and trails to the public, until further notice in order to slow the spread of COVID-19.
I wanna be clear, we are still encouraging people to go outdoors. But do outdoors close to home. It's time to look out for each other." -Mayor Faulconer

The City's site for COVID-19 can be found here, though it does not have the present update. More cities within the County of San Diego and the County itself will likely issue similar orders, so stay tuned. California State Parks have a closure and resource page, though the Governor has closed many state parks and beaches (KPBS), too.
More after the jump.

Slomo: A Documentary in Progress

For anyone who has ever spent anytime on the boardwalk from Mission Beach to Pacific Beach, you've undoubtedly seen Slomo, the man gracefully skating by in slow-motion. His story is inspiring and Joshua Izenberg is attempting to feature the story in a documentary, but they need your help to finish it. Check out the trailer below and if you've got a couple bucks, throw down on their Kickstarter page. If you're headed toward the beaches for Labor Day weekend, be sure to give Slomo a shout.

Slomo Trailer: A Documentary-in-Progress from Josh Izenberg on Vimeo.

Josh Damigo at Pacific Beachfest 10.10.09

I had an early night on Friday so I had planned on meeting my family at Pacific Beachfest early Saturday morning. Josh was a late add to the schedule when someone dropped out, so he picked me up before his 11 am set. Unlike PB Block Party of years past, Pacific Beachfest is very much a family event, with vendors set up along the boardwalk, mostly representing local schools, preschools, athletic associations, and health and chiropractic businesses, along with some crafts, jewelery, and t-shirts, a couple of stages of entertainment, and an area of local food vendors.

Here are a couple videos from Josh Damigo's set:





It was a nice day and not brotastic (as was suggested on Twitter), just a nice family day with beautiful San Diego weather on the ocean.

PB Residents to the Rest of San Diego: Stay the hell out

First, there's the booze ban.

Second, there's the buyout of several lots in the Mission Beach/Pacific Beach area by developers, including the building that housed the Liar's Club.

Now, a "private company" is evaluating the parking situation in Pacific Beach and will likely recommend installing meters where none currently exist.

Just wait, next come the building height exemptions. And development. And less beach access. Apparently, if you have enough dough, you're more entitled to the beach than the rest of us losers.

I'm just saying that all the pieces appear to be separate issues, but add em up.

Liar's Club Moves To Alpine

If you receive the almost weekly Bargoers email list, you might've read the following announcement:

From Palm Trees to Pine Trees: Liar’s Club west heads east

Big talk around bargoers, hop heads, and ale freaks has been the recent closing of Liar’s Club on Mission Blvd. Yes it was sudden, and a surprise, but the even bigger surprise is how soon the new GIANT Liar’s Club will open in Alpine. Alpine is closer than you think. Plus you’ll finish the drive and be eating a burger sooner than it took you to find a park at the old place. Menu’s, taps, and the infamous crossed fingers neon have made the move already. The bad plumbing, and painfully cramped kitchen will stay behind. Louis from Liar’s now partners up with longtime local music booster Al Guerra, so expect a bar as popular with SD music fans as it is with ale addicts. Hope for an opening in the next couple weeks. Stay tuned to Bargoer. Address is 2806 Alpine Blvd, Alpine, CA 91901.

I was going to wait to write about this because there will certainly be an official opening fiesta and whatnot, but since the "soft opening" will be happening soon (possibly as early as this weekend- they're just waiting for the final go ahead from the Health Dept.) and with word on the street that Ken Leighton is once again turning this into a Blurt item, I thought I'd share what I know about the situation before it becomes Blurt-ified and sounds like there was some sort of crazy drama.


The new Alpine location has been in the works for sometime. Al Guerra lives out in that area and wanted to open a place that could serve as a music venue for the east county peeps who, for a long time, didn't really have any options other than scattered house parties. Eventually the restaurant and bar hopes to host up to 5 shows a month.


In the meantime, there were some minor issues out at the Mission Beach location. Louis never intended to close the MB location, at least not for some time. According to Al, there were some tax issues, namely late sales taxes, so the ABC got involved and took the liquor license as collateral until the back taxes were paid.


That didn't take long to resolve, however, but in the meantime, with the Liar's Club boarded up, the landlord told Louis that he sold the land to developers, so he would be buying him out of his lease. The same developers bought at least 3 other lots, and plan to raze existing properties to build condos.


I really plan on looking into this a whole lot more, because it was just last week that I was posting about residents who are trying to gather support in an effort to recall Kevin Faulconer, who will certainly be on the side of the developer, and most certainly will be fighting to give them an exemption to the current beach height limits in that zoning area.


Probably not so coincidentally, it also comes down just as the noise ordinance that was enacted in the SDSU area has been expanded to the Pacific Beach and Mission Beach areas, that gives police the right to give $1000 citations to hosts and homeowners hosting parties deemed "too noisy". Smells like gentrification to me...get those college kids out and make way for the rich people who are getting crowded out of La Jolla and Del Mar, no?


Anyway, no doubt you'll be hearing all the facts from Mr. Leighton, right? You know the deal, Blurt publishes at noon on Wednesday. And Street is already looking into it, too...

More Info On Pacific Beach Labor Day (fill in the blank_____)

FreePB.org has posted more eyewitness reports about the Labor Day incident(s) in Pacific Beach.

More video:



From the videographer's point of view:

I eventually turned my camera off, but just as I did so the police went after several people with pepper spray. This caused mass chaos....and I immediately left the area and headed north on the beach. I honestly believe if the police left the scene after the arrest and did not use the pepper spray the situation would not have escalated to what we know is called the "PB Riot". All I know is that after I left the scene even more chaos erupted and what I see on the news is so shocking. I honestly believe both the disrespectful drunks who chose to piss off the cops are to blame, as well as the police who appeared to enrage the crowd even more by using pepper spray.

Other witness quotes:

From what I saw, no one could call the entire episode anything other than a minor disturabce effectively contained by the SDPD -- and certianly not a riot by any stretch of the imagination.- SH

I was randomly right there in the water next to the guy who started pushing the ATV. It looked to me like the ATV was semi deep in the water and slowing moving even deeper. Some kid got behind it and put a ton of effort into pushing it out of the water and calmly rolled it up to the cops. A few seconds after he [brought] them the ATV, they arrested him. It looked like at first people were walking up to the cops trying to explain to them the kid was helping them but I guess they didn't listen. I know the cops knew he was trying to help because they were watching him as he was pushing it up the beach to them. When they didn't let the kid go people started booing, a few empty beer cans were thrown at the cops, mostly just a bunch of sand being thrown. Then out of no where one of the cops charged at us in the water and started spraying mace, thats when people started throwing more stuff and it really got out of hand. -KG

The slipping slide people had had their slipping slide out for about 4 hours, which I didn't think was really that big of a deal. It got a little rowdy over there at one point in time (about 30 minutes before the cops showed up) when a bunch of people were sliding down it and a big group of guys was chanting "we want boobs". I went over there and checked it out for a little bit, no big deal. About 30 minutes later an office rolled up in his quad and went over to talk to those guys, probably to tell them they couldn't have the slide. While he was over there, some joker ran over and pushed the quad toward the water about 5 ft. The quad was already too close to the water, so the waves started washing up underneath and moving it around a bit (this was happening about 20 ft in front of me while I was sitting in my beach chair) Another guy who was just walking by, saw the officers quad in the water, he didn't know the first guy who originally touched it as far as I could tell. He decided to be a good citizen and grabbed the back of the quad and pushed it up out of the water onto dry sand. I don't know if the cop didn't see any of this or what, but he came over right as the guy had finished pushing his quad up to the high tide line. As the office walked up, to our surprise, he grabbed the guy who had pushed the quad out of the water and twisted his arm behind his back and cuffed him. By this time a large number of people were watching. Everyone started booing and yelling that this was a wrongful arrest, and the guy had done nothing wrong. This is when things started getting carried away, sand and beer cans started flying into the center where the officer was standing, at this point it was getting hard to see so I stood up to watch, there was another cop in the middle of the crowd at this time as well.-VL

Pacific Beach and the Labor Day Fight

I wasn't at Pacific Beach on Monday for Labor Day. In fact, other than hanging out on the deck at Taang! Records (before it moved), having a couple beers before a show at Cane's or having picnics at Tourmaline, I can't really remember the last time I went to any local beach for any reason. It's not my thing, never has been. The beach "lifestyle" has never really appealed to me.

My sister, her husband, and Johanna live in PB, however, so I do pay attention to what goes on in their 'hood. I recently read the Reader cover story and now the news that there was a "riot" in PB on Labor Day Weekend, and all I can say is that I'm not surprised. I avoid PB for a host of reasons, but the frat-boy, "bro", high-fivin' mentality that pervades makes me gag. I avoid douchebags at all costs.

The thing is I know how it is; a whole group of people take the blame for the stupid few who can't handle their booze, who have too much testosterone and want to fight anyone who even looks at them, and who generally have no respect or concern for anyone or anything. In my experience, these people are usually transplants to San Diego via the military or SDSU who are here to live the life they saw on MTV spring break specials. They are probably 5% of the people who hang out in PB. Get them in one group and you have some serious groupthink and mob mentality. They may be few, but they are asshole enough to keep people like me from going to the beaches in PB. Ever.

As a person who believes strongly in personal rights and freedoms, I have never supported a booze ban on the beach. I never thought I would, either. But when you see these herds of assholes on the beach, as long as they are there, I won't be. And I pay the sunshine tax, too, so shouldn't I feel comfortable enjoying the beaches of San Diego? I still don't support a booze ban, but this situation definitely makes you think of ways to fix the problem: no booze on holidays? charging a fee to use the beach? limiting the amount of people on the beach at any given time? banning anyone who says dude or bro more than 5 times in 3 minutes?

In fairness, I've heard there are various stories about what happened. I can't seem to find the clip, but my dad said that the news showed that the "riot" started after police were called to break up a fight. One of the cops left his quad in the water, the tide started to pull the quad in the water, so a dude started pushing the quad out of the tide and the cop tackled him, not realizing he was actually just trying to help. From that, the initial melee ensued (supposedly). I'm sure with thousands of people on the beach, there are thousands of varying accounts, but just watching any of these videos and I know why I don't do the beach "scene". (Found the video. See it here.






More amateur (and dizzying) video here, here and here.

Clearly, if you care about booze on the beach, either for or against it, this is the time to step up and make your opinion count.

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