La Jolla small business owners want lawful path to conduct business on the beach
SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — A small group of business owners in La Jolla who utilize the beach in their operations says their events are being unfairly discriminated against by the City of San Diego.
“The new street vending ordinance that has been passed and approved by city officials eliminates all professional services across all San Diego beaches. We feel that this extreme measure discriminates against a large number of our community members and visitors.”
BluLite Bonfires is essentially a picnic service, they provide everything for a great day at the beach so the customer doesn’t have to do any of the heavy lifting, and cater to people with disabilities.
“Our heroes at the VA who need a little extra help setting up a beach event. By removing all professional services from our beaches you’re saying to all these amazing people that they can’t enjoy what we really want from our amazing city and that’s a simple fun day at the beach,” said Rene Contreras, owner of BluLite Bonfires.
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Gregor Coffaro owns Purpose First Beach Cleanup. On the first Saturday of every month, his nonprofit organizes a public beach clean-up with fun events.
“We aim to help build value in our communities and bring people together from our walks of life. That’s really our goal, is to help save the ocean and to have a good time while doing it. My wish is that we get the support of the city,” said Coffaro.
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The group gathered at La Jolla Shores Tuesday to implore the City of San Diego to allow them to keep running their businesses on the beach, which according to city municipal code is unlawful on all city beaches and has been for quite some time.
A representative from the city sent the following statement to FOX 5/KUSI, which reads in part “The Parks and Recreation Department has created a permitting process for commercial activity for pop-up and luxury picnics in coastal areas and in Balboa Park. Commercialized activity on parkland and beaches is currently illegal, however these new guidelines will expand opportunities for commercial vendors to conduct business legally within 12 permittable locations, and will align these business activities with the city’s existing municipal code and the new street vendor ordinance recently adopted unanimously by the city council. A new section has been added to the Parks and Recreation Department permit center website [sandiego.gov] (see section on “luxury picnic permitting”) to provide interested vendors with information about the guidelines, locations and how to secure permits. Outreach to commercial vendors is ongoing to provide guidance on these new requirements.”
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RESTORE San Diego founder Amy Reichert is supporting the businesses in their efforts.
“What they’re asking for right now is a process, just a fair permitting process so they can do that. They’re actually asking to be regulated and the city has said no, even though other cities do allow these activities.”
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