Ocean Beach and Pacific Beach – open-air insane asylums?

In Ocean Beach the lack of any code enforcement, compassionate or otherwise, continues to fuel health and safety concerns for the those who live there permanently. Homeless encampments on the beach, on the bluffs, litter strewn everywhere, unavoidable human feces and urine crusted on the sidewalks and walls.

Vendors without permits are free to set up at the foot of Newport at Abbott to sell, among other things: weed, edibles, ‘magic’ mushrooms, glass pipes, alcohol, Jell-O shots, haircuts, food from the bed of the truck or water from a dirty cooler at their feet. No health department checks. No permits. No taxes. Simply put, it’s a shit show. Vendors block red zones and public and beach access because apparently the City is still working on an ordinance.

“They are now blocking sidewalks and pathways for wheelchair and handicap accessibility,” Brian M. observed. “It’s pushing pedestrians, including children into the street just to walk by. If the City is deeming it legal, then it needs to be done right. They can’t block public pathways.”

There have been numerous conversations with Mayor Todd Gloria, City Council President Jen Campbell and their staff about these problems in District 2. The community was told earlier this year there would at least be a vending ordinance in place. Still crickets on that issue. They simply repeat the statement: “We need to do more outreach.”

Keep in mind, this is not community outreach, this is strictly vendor outreach so the city can draft an ordinance that fits what the vendors want.

Meanwhile, the Ocean Beach Town Council is hosting its annual Pancake Breakfast Saturday, October 2nd at 7:00 am. The annual fundraiser will not be held on the pier this year due to pier damages; instead it will be at Veterans Plaza. Smack dab in the middle of where the unpermitted vendors and encampments have taken over. Yet the town council needed to jump through hoops to get the permit they needed to host their event.

On September 18, Gloria and Campbell attended the Think Blue and I Love a Clean San Diego beach clean-up event at Saratoga Park. Prior to the photo-op, they had all the homeless removed from the park.

During the event, a resident named Mark approached Mayor Gloria in efforts to address the crime and homeless encampments in the parks and beaches.

“I asked Todd how we could help with crime and homeless encampments in Saratoga Park. His reply? Get vaccinated!” Mark shared on Facebook.

“I witnessed most of this conversation,” Brian replied. “It was disappointing to hear how defensive the mayor got and how dismissive he was about Mark’s simple questions and concerns for the park and our neighborhood. His first response was definitely an aggressive ‘get vaccinated’…unfortunately this has been a growing problem before Covid. When the mention of other neighborhoods were brought up, his response was that the residents there would say the same stuff. At one point he mentioned that another neighborhood had already said these things to him. My impression was that he didn’t want to hear it again, which he should be open to hearing it from every neighbor. When Mark mentioned police officers he’s been in contact with, he kept saying to keep getting ahold of them…it was never I’ll look into it or get more involved.”

On September 11, Kevin broke down his reasons for moving out of Pacific Beach via a post on Nextdoor. His sentiment is echoed in other parts of San Diego that the city seems to ignore.

“After 12 years in PB I'm leaving - This place has become an open-air insane asylum,” he writes. “PB has been great for the last decade+, but the crime and public drug use has become too much. I used to feel safe walking the boardwalk in the evenings. It's not as bad as some places but it's gradually feeling less and less safe.

" Last week at about 6 pm on a Thursday, I saw a heroin addict taking a dump in front of Chase Bank right on Garnet. He just dropped trou and let it fly. We just walk on by. I can't go for a walk without being accosted by a drug addict. My bike was stolen and it's only a matter of time before my car window gets smashed…these are the mentally ill and drug addicts that have refused the available help and have chosen to prey on us while checking out of society and openly using drugs on the streets.

"They've created organized bike stealing rings and are getting more violent. These are not people that are just down on their luck and need a job and an apartment. They need help…there is help available and they have refused it…How crazy is it that we are conditioned to walk past human bodies lying on the sidewalk, sand, and trails? They could be dead but we just walk past. We should be calling 911 on every single one for medical assistance. It's depressing. The police are really good about following up on items reported in the "get it done" app, but their hands are mostly tied by our feel-good policies.”

Corey Bruins, Ocean Beach Town Council president, expanded on the city's priorities: "As long as events like the Pier Pancake Breakfast and Craft Fair have existed, we’ve only been required to go through the Parks & Rec permit process. This year, we were informed by Parks that we would also be required to go through the extensive, cumbersome, and overly bureaucratic special event permit process. Our volunteer events chair, Stephanie Kane, is tens of hours deep in this extensive process.

"All the while, taking a wander through the Veteran’s Plaza grass area (which is where both our Pier Pancake Breakfast and Craft Fairs are taking place this year), one might guess that an event permit had been pulled for the unauthorized vendor fair happening many days each week. As we all know, this is not the case.

SB-946, the statewide legislation that regulates street vending practices, went into effect on January 1, 2019, and despite many promises since then, the city is still yet to pass a street vending ordinance."