Beach Booze Issue Headed to Ballot

San Diego City Council members were left to devise new strategies Tuesday after learning that a group opposing a ban on alcohol at city parks and beaches had succeeded in gathering enough signatures to put the issue to the test of a referendum.

The group called People to Ban the Ban needed about 28,000 signatures by April 17--when the law was scheduled to take effect--and that day turned in more than 45,000. The booze ban had been approved by a 7-0 vote of the council in February.

Monday, the city clerk’s office finished verifying whether those who signed the petition were registered and qualified to vote within the city.

More than 70%, or about 1,000 more than were necessary, matched the criteria, said Mikel Haas, deputy director with the clerk’s office. It’s now lawful again to drink at the beach.

The council is faced with these options:

* It can put the measure to the test of the voters within the required 11 months. The first available opportunity would be a primary election Sept. 17. But, since that isn’t a citywide election, making it one could cost taxpayers as much as $500,000.

* It can rescind the measure and put it on the ballot in 1992, when the cost during a scheduled, citywide election would be about $50,000.

* It can rescind the ban approved in February and re-enact one that attempts to mollify the People to Ban the Ban while giving pro-ban forces what they want as well. Scores of beach-area residents have complained that a ban is needed to stem rising crime.

Councilwoman Abbe Wolfsheimer said Tuesday that, in the wake of the petition qualifying for the ballot, her preference is to rescind the ban on booze at city parks and beaches that the signatures quashed and vote in a new law at La Jolla Shores.

Wolfsheimer, whose district includes the coastal strip from Bird Rock to North Torrey Pines, said council members were surprised that a local grass-roots effort secured enough signatures to keep the ban from becoming law.

Wolfsheimer, who supported the ban on alcohol at La Jolla Shores and Kellogg Park that was voted in last August, then followed that by voting for the broader ban, said she favors the last option.

“I’m putting together a commission called SOB,” she said. “You will hear from SOB, which is Save Our Beaches.

“I think it’s a good idea to lay down laws when people exhibit bad behavior--abusive behavior--which comes from alcohol. I want to return the beaches to the majority, and it’s the minority of drunkards and dope dealers and vandals creating the havoc.”

Wolfsheimer said that rescinding the ban, approved in February by a 7-0 vote with Councilman Wes Pratt and Mayor Maureen O’Connor absent, and putting it on the ballot in 1992 would take too long.

Her constituents want something done before then, she said, so she intends to push for a new ban, particularly at La Jolla Shores, well before that time.

Attorney Rick Miller, co-chairman of People to Ban the Ban, said he believes Wolfsheimer and many of those who favor a ban at La Jolla Shores have taken an elitist posture toward the beaches.

“Abbe Wolfsheimer got up at a recent public meeting and said, ‘I wish those people would just stay home and not come to our beaches,’ ” Miller said. “The attitude is increasingly one of, ‘The beach is our private property, so you other people stay away.’

“And that attitude has got to stop. The feeling we get is: ‘You peons who can’t afford to live at the beach--stay the hell away.’ ”

City Councilman Ron Roberts, whose district under revised council boundaries includes the coastal strip from Mission Beach to Bird Rock, said he favors a compromise between those who favor a ban and the increasingly active beer and liquor lobby.

“The liquor industry wanted a ban on the ban,” Roberts said. “Their financial interests were at stake, so they dumped money into the signature-gathering camp. I hope we can sit down with people in the industry and come to some kind of agreement.

“I’d like a situation where we can drink on the beach but eliminate a lot of the problems associated with it.”

Wolfsheimer questioned the motives of the People to Ban the Ban, saying that they, like many who collect signatures for political ends these days, have figured out a way to make it “a money-making project.”

“You get a dollar a signature,” she said. “It’s a brand-new enterprise. So we’ve got this process where large groups can go and drink on the beach, and there are people playing signature games, deciding it’s the in thing to do. You bet, some people have found a way to make bucks on this democratic process.”

“She’s wrong,” activist Miller said. “I didn’t pay anybody, and I didn’t get paid. There were people who were paid for signatures, that’s true. But it’s not a matter of profiteering. Some people said they would be happy to collect signatures but had problems with that because of their full-time jobs.

“So, some of those people were paid for time. They were paid through donations, for the most part.”

Miller said the perception of an organized liquor lobby isn’t accurate.

“OK, sure, some contributed money,” he said. “They included convenience stores, beer distributors. . . . But there is no organized liquor lobby. There’s just a lot of people concerned about this issue.

“This ban was a very high-handed law, an attempt to cure a variety of ills with just one law, when there are plenty of laws on the books to prohibit all the activity people complain about. There’s even a city ordinance against ‘boisterous activity on the boardwalk.’

“A lot of people like to come to the beach and have a beer and pose no problem at all. This ban would have made them a criminal. I was feeling really bad for all the Navy guys who went to the Persian Gulf, defending their country, only to be told, once back at city beaches and parks, that they were breaking the law by having a beer. How ridiculous.”