Towers 11 and 12 in the ruff?
By CORTNEY FIELDING Special to the Daily Press
It looks like it’ll be dog day afternoons at the beach for canines.
In an unanimous decision, the City Council voted Tuesday to begin work on a dog beach pilot program that would set aside a small portion of Santa Monica State Beach for dogs to swim and run off-leash.
Georja Umano Jones, founder of “Unleash the Beach,” the organization of that introduced the proposal, began her campaign last summer by collecting thousands of signatures in support of a dog beach. Jones said Tuesday she had the support of at least 2,500 Santa Monica residents.
“We could have gotten a lot more signatures, but we just got tired of collecting,” Jones said.
Jones and five others who spoke Tuesday on behalf of the proposal, touted the beach’s benefits and explained how it will operate.
Jones said the park will have a positive effect on city revenue and will bring more people downtown. Using Huntington Beach and Carmel as examples, she claimed both cities saw increased business after implementing their dog beaches.
Jones said the Santa Monica dog beach will model a one-year pilot program that the city of Long Beach completed in September. She said the reason the Long Beach program was successful was because a non-profit group called the “Recreation Dog Park Association” was responsible for the area, cleaning it regularly and because many people volunteered to monitor the beach while it was in use.
Using the same model, Jones said Unleash the Beach is planning on becoming a non-profit group and already has signed up 56 people to volunteer at the Santa Monica dog beach.
“It is the only way the beach can be successful,” Jones said.
Residents’ biggest objection to dog beaches are potential environmental damage. However, Jones argued that dog beaches don’t have an adverse affect on the environment.
“We are environmentalists ourselves,” she said.
Jones hopes results from water quality tests in Long Beach will calm resident concerns over water quality issues. After a year of allowing dogs to swim in the ocean, “there was absolutely no decline in water quality,” she said.
While some of the concerns residents expressed included dogs relieving themselves on the beach, Unleash the Beach member and city groundskeeper Patricia Gordon said most droppings left behind were from unleashed dogs allowed to roam while their owners used the bike baths.
“People’s preoccupation with poop is unwarranted,” Gordon said.
But to quell the fears associated with dog feces, the group said it has found a company to pick up any droppings left behind by the canines.
While the location of the dog beach has not yet been decided, Unleash the Beach has pinpointed the area between lifeguard towers 11 and 12, between California Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard.
Because that section does not regularly see many beachgoers, and there are no homes in the area, it is ideal for dogs, Unleash the Beach member Michelle Jones said. The placement of a storm drain also makes the area less desirable, and therefore will allow the dogs to run around with a minimal disruption to the public.
Going into Tuesday’s vote, the group was not expecting much opposition from the council. It had the support of Councilman Bobby Shriver, who endorsed the group last fall during his campaign, as well as City Councilman Herb Katz. Jones said the group also labeled Councilmen Richard Bloom and Ken Genser as “dog friendly.”
Unleash the Beach will now work with city staff to decide how to best implement the dog beach. Jones hopes the beach will be ready to go this summer.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 13, 2005. Read the original PDF.