Messy Debate Over Dog Beach : License to Romp Unleashes Feud in Community

Officially, the maps refer to the stretch of sand at the extreme northern end of Ocean Beach as Yogi Beach. But to the many San Diego dog owners who use the small patch of coast to allow their pets to run free, it’s known by something else: Dog Beach.

The name is all too literal to some Ocean Beach residents, who feel that the sandy spit jutting into the San Diego River Floodway has indeed gone to the dogs. Those residents are intent on cleaning up the beach by banning the animals from it, and that has owners worried. They fear they could lose one of only two beach areas in San Diego where canines are allowed to roam free any time of the day.

The debate has drawn heated comments from both sides and hinted at developing friction between longtime residents of the funky beach community and newer residents who want to improve the area’s image.

Chance to Air Views

It has also prompted the Ocean Beach Town Council to sponsor a town meeting to discuss the issue tonight at 7:30 at the Ocean Beach Masonic Lodge. About half a dozen representatives of county and city elected officials and governmental agencies have been invited.

No official action is expected to take place tonight, but the meeting’s sponsors say they hope the session will give both sides a chance to air their views.

The problem is simple and messy.

“The sand is full of dog feces,” said Eileen Histen, head of the council’s Dog Beach committee. “It’s very uncomfortable.”

The situation has raised concerns about unsanitary conditions and drawn the attention of the San Diego County Department of Health Services. Officials are worried that the waste could lead to the spread of disease among humans and dogs using the beach.

“The issue of the dog droppings has to be addressed effectively,” said Moise Mizrahi, chief of the health department’s vector control division, which deals with problems presented by disease-producing animals. “Either the dog owners are going to have to be held responsible for policing after their dogs, or the alternative is to close it down.”

Concerned About Enforcement

Mizrahi said conditions have not reached the point where the department would consider using emergency power to order that the dogs be banned from the beach. At the same time, he is concerned about the ability to enforce existing laws requiring that owners clean up after their pets.

A city law requires that owners clean up after their dogs, but citations are rarely issued, because the law is difficult to enforce, said Sally Hazzard, director of the San Diego County Department of Animal Control.

“We are concerned with enforcing all of the laws, but this is not one of our high-priority items,” said Hazzard, whose department is funded by the city.

Hazzard said she is interested in learning at tonight’s meeting whether residents feel that Dog Beach has outgrown its usefulness.

“We want to see if current events have overtaken the original designation,” Hazzard said. “I have made no conclusion about that at this point.”

Dog Beach and Fiesta Island are the only beaches in San Diego that are exempt from a law that requires dogs in public beach areas to be on leashes and restricts their presence to between 6 p.m. and 9 a.m. The exemption for Dog Beach was approved in 1972, but neither Ocean Beach nor city or government officials contacted last week could recall why Dog Beach received special status.

Limited Public Asset

Robert Burns, an Ocean Beach lawyer who is active among those critical of the state of the beach, said he is not especially concerned about banning the dogs. He just wants to see that owners are forced to clean up after them. He is annoyed by an attitude he said exists among some dog owners that the beach should effectively be left in their control.

“Why should they be allowed to ruin a limited public asset?” Burns said. “If they are going to ruin it for everyone else, they don’t deserve to be down there.”

But Andrea Savage, a resident of Ocean Beach for 12 years and the owner of two dogs, said she is concerned that the issue is about much more than just dogs on the beach.

” . . . Ocean Beach has a bad reputation--drugs, sex and rock ‘n’ roll. What’s happened is a lot of upscale yuppies are moving in, property values are going up, and some developers are trying to eliminate the bad reputation and make it an appealing place, a nice beach.”

Paul Grasso, an aide to San Diego City Councilman Ron Roberts, whose 2nd District includes Ocean Beach, agreed that the issue provides an example of what he called the changing nature of Ocean Beach.

“Ocean Beach is going through a revitalization,” Grasso said. “The image of Ocean Beach as a place where people come down with their dogs to relieve them on the beach and let it wash into the water is something some in the community find offensive.”

Prelude to Total Ban?

He said letters to Roberts’ office were running slightly in favor of keeping the area open to unleashed dogs and that Roberts did not see a need to change the law at this time.

But Savage fears that even stricter enforcement of the current cleanup law would be a prelude to banning the dogs altogether.

“It is unpopular to say, ‘Let’s ban all the dogs,’ so they start by saying they want to clean it up,” Savage said. Asking dog owners to clean up more carefully after their pets is impractical, she said.

“What are you going to do, chase them down the beach with a shovel?” She said she advocates instead an increase in dog license fees to pay for more frequent cleanups of the area.

Histen, the Dog Beach committee chairman, said the city has already begun to respond to resident concerns by placing additional trash cans and so-called “pooper scooper” shovels on the beach to help dog owners pick up the waste.