Show the OB Town Council – and everybody else (like the Mayor) – that you want to save the fire rings of Ocean Beach. They’re on the agenda tonight, April 28th, of the Town Council.
They meet at 7 pm at the Masonic Temple, corner of Sunset Cliffs Boulevard and Santa Moncia Ave.
Mayor Sanders is threatening to begin removing all 185 of San Diego’s fire rings, including the remaining eight here in OB, beginning July 1. (We used to have 16 during the summer months.)
The City says the is no more funds to maintain them, that it costs $120,ooo to clean all the pits every week.
In response, we here at the OB Rag started an “Adopt-a-Fire-Pit Program” where locals pledged to clean and maintain our fire rings for the upcoming year.
There’s also an excellent website Save the San Diego Fire Pits so check that out as well.
See our most recent post here.
Hope to see you tonight!
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Is the meeting still going? We didn’t quite get the opening spot Frank mentioned, but listening to Fire talk about the station closures and Officer Surwilo from SDPD was certainly interesting…big props to that guy by the way for trying his best to put a human face on the badge. Nice meeting everyone I haven’t – Abby, Sunshine, Danny, Shane…I’m sure you guys and Frank took better notes than me so I won’t try for the write-up. But KUSI and one other station (I think either CW6 or Fox5) was interviewing Frank outside while the (great) comments rolled on. Sorry I had to bail early, had a kid to feed and bathe and read some Disney yaddayadda with before bedtime…
Less than thrilled with KUSI’s coverage. Their sound byte consisted of Frank hitting on the possibility of someone burning their feet walking over coals from an illegal fire that might occur if the pits go – makes it sound to me like it’s okay to remove the pits so long as cops crack down hard on people who continue to build fires and try to relive old times.
Officer Surwilo made it pretty clear they don’t have the funds or the manpower to crack down on illegal fires if the pits are removed. Hopefully enough people will see that, even if KUSI didn’t think it important enough to mention.
True, true. And the biggest problem is that the actual act of having the fire isn’t illegal, it’s the dumping of coals that creates the violation, quite the contrary to his widely-accepted assertion that private firepits and barbecues were illegal. City beach regulations (http://www.sandiego.gov/lifeguards/safety/bchreg.shtml) state:
“Beach Fires — Fires are permitted only in fire containers provided by the City or in personal barbeques elevated off the ground. Coals must be removed or deposited in hot coal containers.”
I interpret this to mean that I could bring my own fire pit to the beach and use it at my leisure, provided I’m not building a fire directly on the sand or dumping my coal/ash onto the ground. While it would be hard enough to extend SDPD resources to bust people for illegal fires, it’d be even worse to monitor legal fires to try and catch someone in the illegal act of dumping the coals on the ground once they were done with their fire. I think that’s why the myth that ‘all fire outside the cement rings is illegal’ is perpetuated…