OB Rag Archives on the Ocean Beach Marshmallow Wars

Every year for the past several, there’s a whole lot of soul-searching done by OBceans when they survey the gooey mess left over from the July 4th traditional OB Marshmallow War. There are usually calls to ban it outright and much gnashing of the teeth as volunteers struggle to clean up the beaches, the streets, the monuments, the …. everything else that got caught in the targets of marshmallow throwers.

In 2009, the OB Rag did a poll of readers on whether the tradition should continue.

… 69% of the respondents to the OB Rag poll want the Marshmallow Wars tradition to continue, although nearly half of those want some kind of controls placed on the event by volunteers, whereas 27% believe the event is out of control and want it to end.  3% wanted to study the issue.  At that time we had 62 respondents.

Here, then is the OB Rag’s Archives on the OB Marshmallow Wars, collected over the last several years – several of these articles have some tremendous comments, so make sure you read them as well. (Click on the the headlines.)

• Who Started the First OB Marshmallow Fight? by Frank Gormlie, July 4, 2009

• Veteran’s Memorial Clean-Up Slated for This Saturday – July 18th by Jon Carr, July 17, 2009

• Blogger Rant: Make Love Not Smores – By Dave Gilbert, July 19, 2009

• A Great Start on the Veteran’s Memorial Cleanup by Jon Carr, July 19, 2009

• Polls show most want to keep OB’s Marshmallow Fight – but many want some kind of controls placed on the event – July 27, 2009

• Should Ocean Beach End Its Marshmallow Wars ? – by Frank Gormlie, July 1, 2010

• OB Marshmallow Fight to Be Closely Monitored by Police – includes poll taken of OBceans on the tradition; by Frank Gormlie, July 2, 2010

• Infamous Ocean Beach marshmallow fight expands onto Newport and at vehicles. – by Frank Gormlie, July 5, 2011

• A Call for Moderation During OB’s “Marshmallow Wars” on July 4th – by Frank Gormlie, June 29, 2012