BREAKING NEWS: Dog Beach Beer Fest Is Cancelled

It has just been confirmed to the OB Rag that this weekend’s Dog Beach Beer Fest has been cancelled. No reason was given.

According to radio station 94.9, they found out about the cancellation little after 12 noon today. Even though the radio station is one of the sponsors, it didn’t have the authority to cancel the fest scheduled for Sunday, April 29th  – that decision was made by the promotional company.

That may be Eventbrite. Or is it Rock Star Beer Festival? Or Hodads? the other sponsors?

This all may be good news for some OBceans – those with concerns and questions about the event – a beer festival right in the middle of Dog Beach. Some thought it very strange the city would permit something like this – while alcohol is not allowed on the beach. There were also concerns about the event disrupting the beach, the dogs – and with the Beer Fest set to take off a week after a MAJOR beach clean-up seemed incongruous.

So — who cancelled it?

The following message was left on one of OB’s many social media pages, putting the decision to cancel on the Park and Recreation Department:

BOO  :(
OB Beer fest

Hello Dog Lovers, we have some extremely unfortunate news that has come our way.

The San Diego Parks and Recreation has canceled our event scheduled for this Sunday. We were not given a distinct reason as of right now except that it came from the highest up person for City events. We have tried to work with them on alternatives but we have yet to find something that would work. We apologize for any inconvenience this might have caused and would like to apologize on behalf of all the entities involved in this decision. We hope to bring the Dog Friendly Beer Festival to the City of San Diego later this year.

Tickets purchased through eventbrite will be refunded through the app this week. Tickets bought through third party sources like groupon or through promoters will be refunded ASAP. Refunds will hopefully go through early next week for those.

We encourage you to still have fun this Sunday and take out your dogs. We would love to have partied with all of you and your 4 legged friends but unfortunately, we cannot challenge the city on this particular situation.

Most Sincerely,

Frank Gormlie
A former lawyer and current grassroots activist, I have been editing the Rag since Patty Jones and I launched it in Oct 2007. Way back during the Dinosaurs in 1970, I founded the original Ocean Beach People’s Rag - OB’s famous underground newspaper -, and then later during the early Eighties, published The Whole Damn Pie Shop, a progressive alternative to the Reader.

5 thoughts on “BREAKING NEWS: Dog Beach Beer Fest Is Cancelled

  1. Wow! Unbelievable someone working for city parks & rec dept. showed some intelligent forethought. An historical situation.

  2. I don’t need anyone encouragement to take my dogs out and have fun, I get enough of that from my four four-legged friends every day.

      1. I was responding to the last paragraph that said “We encourage you to still have fun this Sunday and take out your dogs,” the comment was not about the event.

  3. Too bad. Seems like it would have been a fun event. I’m sure there would be some problems with dog and people fights, trash, and neighbors not happy… but you can’t please everyone. It is kind of a gross area though… pretty stinky.

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