Recent enforcement of “luxury picnic” companies – those that provide an elaborate picnic setup on the beach or coastal parks – looks to many like a new ban on such activity.
Although the city of San Diego says luxury picnics and other such operations have always been illegal, business owners are saying it’s a switch from previous policy.
Earlier this month, the city began enforcement against what it calls luxury picnic operations but it’s not a ban, said Nicole Darling, director of the city’s Communications Department, as commercial activity on the beach has been prohibited under the city’s Municipal Code.
“What the city now has in place is a legal process for businesses to follow with locations where they are allowed to operate,” Darling said.
“There have not been any changes,” San Diego City Council President Pro Tem Joe LaCava, whose District 1 includes La Jolla, said at a March 26 Town Hall meeting in La Jolla. “It’s always been against the law.”
During the pandemic, he said, such activities proliferated in a way “we had not seen before,” he said, prompting the city “to think differently.”
The solution currently limits activities to “some designated spots that are open to these kinds of things that we think we can manage and enforce,” La Cava said.
In La Jolla, such businesses are allowed at what the city calls “Sunset Cliff—South Cuvier,” with companies staying far south of The Wedding Bowl; and the southern park of Scripps Park, above Shell Beach (although that area is currently under construction.)
Business permits are required for activities like luxury picnics in the allowed areas; guidelines and regulations are found on the city’s new website, launched March 9, under “Luxury Picnic Permitting.”
The Special Event permit process is still in place, as has always been, for nonprofits and private events that occur occasionally or annually.
Jean Walker, who runs Beach Genie to offer beach experiences, said there is a group of professional beach service providers who have worked with LaCava’s office for two years to obtain permits for their activities.
“I was very disappointed” that after all that effort, the group wasn’t informed of the imminent enforcement, she said.
“We all have business licenses in our consortium,” Walker added. “We all have a business structure and we all have insurance. There is nothing lacking. We have permits on state beaches; we have permits in Oceanside, Santa Barbara and Santa Monica. There’s no reason that the city of San Diego can’t do it too.”
“It’s incumbent upon [LaCava’s] office to make this happen,” Walker said.
LaCava maintained there was no new ban on such activity: “You may not like it, and it may not be cast in concrete, but that’s where all that effort got to after those two years.”
“Our beaches are public space and should be open and available to everyone,” Darling said in a statement. The hope is that the new guidelines “will expand opportunities for commercial vendors to conduct business legally. Outreach to commercial vendors is ongoing to provide guidance on these new requirements.”
Enforcement of the regulations usually falls to Park Rangers; there are nine rangers covering the coastal areas from Ocean Beach north through La Jolla, according to city spokesperson Benny Cartwright.
“At the end of the day, it’s [up to] the operations side of [the city’s department of] Parks & Rec and what they think they can handle and what they think they can regulate,” LaCava said.
And though Cartwright added police officers and lifeguards can assist with enforcement, “unregulated commercial activity on the sand takes up public space, negatively affects the beach and creates a distraction for lifeguards,” San Diego lifeguard Chief James Gartland said in a statement. “Lifeguard resources must be dedicated to public safety and water observation.”
“Is there a path for someone like me, a company like mine, to do our services lawfully so we can still connect our community members?” asked John Grindle of Grin Events, a team-building company in San Diego that uses La Jolla Shores beach for activities.
LaCava encouraged Grindle and others utilizing coastal space for group events or luxury picnics to “reach out to the Parks & Rec Department” to determine how to fit into the guidelines.
