Supes ban booze for good at some IV beaches

By COLBY FRAZIER — Nov. 4, 2009

The days of drinking a beer, or several beers, on beaches along Del Playa Drive in Isla Vista officially ended yesterday when the Board of Supervisors approved an ordinance that permanently banned alcoholic beverages there.

For the last six months, an emergency ordinance barred consumption of alcoholic beverages on the beach. While the emergency ban was meant, and ultimately succeeded, to thwart an event called Floatopia 2, the first installment of which drew 12,000 revelers to the beach, officials say the benefits of the ban stretched through the summer.

Lt. Brian Olmstead, of the Santa Barbara County Sheriff Department’s Isla Vista Foot Patrol office, said the ban has reduced trash left at the beach and alcohol-related incidents there dropped over the summer. Meanwhile, he said beach attendance has held steady.

The same “number of people [are] enjoying the beach, but they’ve been enjoying it without alcohol,” he said. “We’ve noticed a significant drop in the amount of trash that’s down there, specifically beer bottles and cans. We’ve also see a decrease in violence that’s alcohol related.”

The positive impacts from the ordinance over the last six months, Olmstead said, prompted authorities to request it be made permanent.

Isla Vista has a long, storied history of alcohol-fueled events. But the April 4 installment of Floatopia, with thousands of hard-partying young people, heaps of leftover garbage — much of which was swept out to sea — and the estimated $20,000 law enforcement tab, convinced some that a ban on alcohol could suffocate such events.

And if one Floatopia wasn’t enough, officials were alarmed that a second was scheduled for May, a tight timeline that officials believed necessitated the emergency ordinance.

While the ordinance bans most alcohol consumption on the beach, which runs roughly from the western tip of Del Playa Drive to Isla Vista’s border with UC Santa Barbara, and stretches 100 yards south of the mean high tide line, Olmstead said alcohol would still be allowed at permitted special events.

He said the ordinance is aimed at unsponsored events, like Floatopia, which was loosely organized through the social networking Web site Facebook.

“It helps prevent these types of unsponsored, unsanctioned events,” he said. “If someone wants to sponsor an event, there’s a permit process to go through.”

This same permit process was in place over the last six months, but according to a staff report prepared for the Board of Supervisors meeting, no applications had been filed.

The Board unanimously approved the ban.

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