By Theresa-Marie Wilson

The Grover Beach City Council recently directed staff back to the drawing board with proposed ideas for an ordinance that redefines a special event and the process required to conduct one. The proposed ordinance also addressed ongoing complaints about vagrancy at Ramona Garden Park where the People’s Kitchen provides a daily meal to homeless people.
The city has received complaints that some of the people stay at the park after the meal and engage in “perceived illegal activities.”
Currently, a special event is anything that has more than 500 attendees. Staff recommended that a new ordinance require a permit for an event with 15 or more people in attendance.
“In order to address concerns that have come forward regarding use of our parks, we looked at modifying that number to a much lower number,” Grover Beach Police Chief Jim Copsey said. “Any event that is occurring in public places that the city owns, basically parks and streets. It would encompass parades and things like that.”
The council didn’t support such a small number.
“I see a whole series of unintended consequences going from 500 to 15,” said Councilman Jeff Lee. “That is a huge leap in my mind.”
“It seems like we are taking a stab at our People’s Kitchen issue, but we have a ton more work to do,” said Councilwoman Mariam Shah adding, “As far as regulating down to 15 people, man I think that is low.”
The ordinance would also limit applicants to 12 events over the course of a year.
“This would help prevent any one group from dominating the daily use of the city parks,” Grover Beach Police Commander Tim Miller said. “The goals would be to improve and streamline existing ordinances, help alleviate some of the concerns voiced by the community and establish set guidelines for city park use, outdoor assemblies and the rental of public facilities.”
In September of 2014, the city council directed staff to install video surveillance cameras at Ramona Garden Park, to bring back a draft ordinance to address menacing and aggressive animals, and a draft ordinance addressing aggressive panhandling.
The cameras were installed in January. For about a month and a half and prior to their installation, police officers responded 134 times to the park; 108 just for security checks, 26 from service crime related calls, with 3 arrests. In the last month and a half after the installation of the cameras, officers responded 79 times; 68 for security checks, 11 service crime related calls, and zero arrests. That boils down to a 57 percent decrease in reported crime matters and 100 percent less arrests.
That said, staff continues to receive complaints from the community regarding the use of Ramona Garden Park and the transients who frequent the park. The city council has adopted an aggressive animal ordinance (that became effective in November 2014), and has adopted an ordinance regarding aggressive solicitation in public places, putting controls and prohibitions of solicitation in specified locations that became effective in March 2015.
Also in September of 2014, staff was directed to prepare a draft ordinance regarding a permitting process for specific activities at city parks. That has not been presented to the council as of yet.
“We do not have a draft ordinance to look at and discuss tonight,” said Councilwoman Barbara Nicolls. “I’m wondering why this timeframe is stretching out. If it follows the usual timeline for procedures, we will not have an ordinance in place before July or August. That is kind of unacceptable, in my thinking.”
City Manager Bob Perrault said that staff did not want to develop an ordinance based only on their opinions as to what it should contain.
“The reason we took this approach was to bring a series of concepts to the council for consideration,” Perrault said. “We wanted to make sure that we got it right in terms of the actual drafting. It adds an additional step, but that is one of the reasons that we also took the concepts to the Parks, Recreation and Beautification Commission first. It took a little bit longer. We put a lot of staff’s thoughts into what those concepts should be.”
The Parks, Recreation and Beautification Commission (PRBC) noted that complaints made by the community members concerning vagrant issues surrounding Ramona Garden Park has had a financial impact on the city as well.
A staff report states, “Some people have either not rented the facility due to the issues or have asked for a refund because of the problems they had while using the facilities. A significant loss in revenues can directly be attributed to the type of behavior occurring in the park. In addition, potential revenues were never realized due to loss of interest after witnessing vagrants in the park. At that time, city rentals were down about 12 percent and total revenues were down about $7,000, which included an ongoing club that had to discontinue use of the Ramona Garden Center due to changes in their operations.”
According to Petker, it was a church group that met weekly at the Ramona Park Community Center that canceled their reservations due to “feeling uncomfortable at the facility and the park surroundings” due to “vagrant behavior” happening in the area.
“We get people calling when they are in their meetings in the facility from people saying there is outside vagrant behavior including noises happening,” Petker said.
The police department said the majority of loud noise disturbance calls concerning the park come in the afternoon when there is a congregation of vagrants at the park.
The new ordinance would also allow approval of special events applications at the city manager level rather than having to present the request to the city council.
“We can get it approved much quicker than having to come to council for approval,” said Grover Beach Police Chief Jim Copsey. The reason we want to shorten that is to address those birthday parties or family events or whatever event it is. They are not restricted the sixty day time period.”
Mayor John Shoals supported steps to streamline the permit process, but came down on the recommendation that more than 15 people gathering requires a permit.
“As long as we are talking about a true special event, I think that (streamlining) is a good thing,” said Shoals. “How do we facilitate permits to get those events in our community. That’s a good thing. Now, the bad thing; in my mind I am having such a huge issue or a dilemma. I have a struggle going on up here because I understand folks who are frustrated with the vagrancy at the park and People’s Kitchen at the park. I want to make sure are we are doing this for the right reasons or are we want doing this for a specific use. I don’t think the approach of overregulating the park, using a sledgehammer to deal with a situation that has far reaching implications. I understand it was staff’s way to try and be nuanced in how we address that issue. I can respect that, but I want to make sure that if that is truly still an issue we deal with that issue straight on.”
He added that requiring a permit for so few people takes away spontaneity for residents who pay taxes that want to go out and enjoy a city park with friends and family.
“I think if we are really going to go down the road of trying to regulate uses in our parks, we tie it to the resources,” Shoals said. “If there are more folks than we have parking spaces, and it starts to bleed into our neighborhoods, that’s a compelling reason. I think that puts us on some solid footing and validation.”