Edhat Staff
By edhat staff
Beach parking lots will be closed throughout Santa Barbara County for Labor Day weekend to comply with the Health Officer’s beach restrictions.
Last week the Santa Barbara County Public Health Department announced plans for beach restrictions to occur over the holiday weekend throughout Santa Barbara County beaches. All beaches will be temporarily closed for stationary activities. Only immediate access to and from the ocean for water sports or beach access for active physical activity will be permitted.
Health Officer, Dr. Henning Ansorg, issued a Health Officer Order to outline the specific parameters of the restrictions. This Order is effective beginning on Friday, September 4, 2020 at 12:01 a.m. and continuing until Monday, September 7, 2020 at 11:59 p.m.
The following restrictions apply for the duration of the Health Officer Order:
- Sitting, lying, standing, sunbathing, sight-seeing, picnicking, and all other non-exercise, passive, or sedentary activities on beach parkways are prohibited.
- Items for sitting or lying on the beach are prohibited for use of possession on beaches, such as umbrellas, shade structures, tents, barbeque grills, sand or beach toys, coolers and beach chairs.
“Reduced disease transmission is critical in the fight against COVID-19. We anticipate a high volume of visitors at our beaches during the Labor Day weekend, which will impede the practice of safe and necessary social distancing to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in Santa Barbara County,” said Dr. Henning Ansorg. “Our community has remained diligent in their efforts and now is the time to protect all the positive outcomes we have accomplished.”
The City of Goleta announced the Sperling Parking Lot at Ellwood Mesa located at the 7700 block of Hollister Avenue will be closed starting Saturday, September 5 at 12:01 a.m. through Tuesday, September 8 at 6:00 a.m. . All Santa Barbara City Waterfront parking lots, except for Harbor Main, Launch Ramp, and Stearns Wharf, will be closed from Friday, September 4 at 2 a.m. through Tuesday, September 8 at 6 a.m.
For more information about the COVID-19 response locally, visit www.publichealthsbc.org.
Take an uber? You are kidding, right? Luckily, we can walk to the beach from our house, though the 8 yo might complain about it being too long a walk.
This could be solved with a 1.5 hour time limit on parking…
I have never been so happy that the previous owner of this house installed AC…
Someone is going to die of heat exhaustion because of this when they go hiking instead of the beach. The government is out of control and this is not data driven. Funk zone and state street will be booming.
I have agreed with most of the restrictions but this goes too far, especially given the upcoming hot weather. Will this decrease the spread of covid? Perhaps. Will it increase blood pressure, heat exhaustion, and tempers? Definitely. I pity the ones who have to enforce this farce. Fortunately, Ventura and LA County beaches will remain open. I believe Santa Cruz is the only other municipality that has a beach closure this week-end, perhaps to deter the crowds that would roll in from the Bay Area.
So over our city’s emphasis on the tourism industry! It’s not sustainable, it employs low wage earners and lines the pockets of a few, it’s over consumerism to the max, crowds the freeways and beaches, pollutes the air from more traffic, not to mention it’s highly susceptible to the nuances of outside forces beyond normal control including weather, fires, floods, mudslides, toxic chemical spills along the railways, and now… pandemics. Can we please get away from it? And now us locals can’t even park at our beaches to launch water sport equipment to go out and enjoy the ocean. Sorry but the Harbor launch area does not cut it and will be gridlocked again. How can I tote my heavy kayak multiple blocks away from the beach to go access the water? Sorry surrounding neighborhoods, I feel for you. If we have to do this again, please provide enforcement to prevent the crowds from forming but allow water sport access!!!
The next time you are helped by a cashier make sure to tell them they are worthless because you couldn’t kayak this weekend.
I called everyone of our City Council, County Supervisors and the Mayor’s offices. I talked to one of the pages or assistants for Joan Hartmann’s office and she said flat out the the upcoming weekend beach closures are due to worries over people from Los Angeles coming up. I call BS..I haven’t heard anything about LA beach closures. I personally have gone along with these DRACONEAN measures since February with no complaining. But I am just so over this BS. Closing the parking lots, having the Sheriff’s office sending out officer’s to ticket people on the beaches is just a step to far for me. I will be using the beach this weekend. I am just astonished that in the Health Department is actually issuing this order…IMO the parking/partial beach closures is more detrimental to the population..last I heard, the Cov-ID 19 isn’t something that spreads in outdoor enviroments.
Power To The People!!!
“Give Me Liberty, Or Give Me Death!”
I called everyone of our City Council, County Supervisors and the Mayor’s offices. I talked to one of the pages or assistants for Joan Hartmann’s office and she said flat out the the upcoming weekend beach closures are due to worries over people from Los Angeles coming up. I call BS..I haven’t heard anything about LA beach closures. I personally have gone along with these DRACONEAN measures since February with no complaining. But I am just so over this BS. Closing the parking lots, having the Sheriff’s office sending out officer’s to ticket people on the beaches is just a step to far for me. I will be using the beach this weekend. I am just astonished that the Health Department is actually issuing this order…IMO the parking/partial beach closures is more detrimental to the population..last I heard, the Cov-ID 19 isn’t something that spreads in outdoor enviroment.
Power To The People!!!
“Give Me Liberty, Or Give Me Death!”
We need checkpoints along all the main roads into and out of Santa Barbara, orange and white barriers manned by CHP. Show your papers- if you live in SB county OK, you’re allowed in. If you are from somewhere else you must turn around and go back. In government we trust.
Stop spazzing out people. Just deal with the closures this weekend. Come on folks. 3 days or whatever? You can still hit the beach but can’t park right there, can’t sit and stew out there all day. So what? Make a minor sacrifice to get people’s livelihoods and kids educations back on track, please.
Yes, BasicInfo, we can do that. Some of us just question the sense of it. I totally agree that we can’t allow masses of people congregating, on the beach or elsewhere. But the ocean is a vast, open space, and to get to it we need to park and cross the sand. Surely there is a way that can be accommodated.
People could, but they don’t. That’s why this is happening.
Okay, this is taking it a tad bit too far. I get it, we don’t want people lounging at the beach (on a weekend where it’s gonna be in the 90s???) But closing all the parking lots is idiotic. People do actually want to walk and swim.
Yeah, too far here. It is 100% safe to go to the beach with your family. If they don’t want clumps of people from different households, then they need to get off their asses and go patrol. It’s going to be a miserably hot weekend and the water is cool and inviting, yet we can’t even park nearby? People are still going to go to the beach, now they will be parking in residential areas. Got dang our “leaders” are getting stupid….
Yep. Our “family outing” this weekend was going to be a 2-3 mile beach walk, early in the morning before it gets too busy and too hot. So, now we have to annoy the neighbors by parking in front of their houses.
LETMEGO – Do it! All locals should be at the beach enjoying what we pay for. I’m 100% for masks and distancing and avoiding groups, but it’s the beach for craps sake. It’s all we have left! No school, no sports, no bars and now no beach just because they’re too lazy to monitor for “illegal” gatherings? BS!
Good Thank You….
Government is out of control. They are in a power trip to see how much they can take from us before we really start to complain.
Well, instead of hanging out at the beach and being frowned upon, those that are dedicated to the long weekend and tradition will find another place to party and bbq. That would be your local mountain roads…. Painted Cave, W. Camino Cielo, E. Camino Cielo, Gibraltar… why not? They’re not closed to statuary activities like the beach. So campfire away, right? Heat wave? Low humidities? Wind? Who cares, just as long as no one has he audacity to sit in a chair on the beach. The County closes the beach parking lots. The mountain roads are now filled with broken beer bottles, toilet paper, surgical masks, beer cans, gloves, oh, and more toilet paper. Painted Cave Rd. now looks like a stretch of the 210 hwy, complete with graffiti. Thanks County Health. Really making a difference.
Actually the PANDEMIC is out of control, thousands are dying each day in the U.S, and local government is trying to stop the spread so more lives won’t be lost. With 190,000 dead in the U.S. already, that is approximately 63 attacks like 911 which killed 2, 977 souls . The U.S. and Sweden are the only western powers which have let this pandemic run through their populations, with tragic results.
Actually the signs on beach entrances posted by the County don’t say anything about sightseeing, but they do ask people not to sit on the beach with their coolers and umbrellas. Today people are walking on the beach and no one is being stopped. It is the grouping and spreading that the County is trying to stop.
After the stay at home order was listed my husband and I went down to Butterfly to walk our dog. Crowds were thick, people weren’t letting you socially distance. Tourists everywhere with no masks. It was crazy. We haven’t been to the beach since. I’m sure most Santa Barbara locals are being totally safe at the beach, but the out oft owners and non mask wearing folk ruin it for the rest of us. So don’t be mad at the public officials. They are reacting to something they saw.
The ‘Beach Policy’ is probably the dumbest local government action I’ve ever seen. The open air spaces at the beach are probably the most resistant to virus spread, unlike supermarkets, hardware stores, even your doctor’s office – or, god-forbid – the Dentist’s office. As for the paranoia about ‘out-of-towners,’ the beaches in SLO, Ventura and LA counties are open over this weekend. So far as large parties or gatherings? Same as at county parks – just enforce the rules.
Sometimes ‘an abundance of caution’ is an excuse to avoid difficult decisions, or just admitting you don’t know what you are doing. Somehow, I just can’t get my mind around how an individual or a few people people sitting on their butts at the beach is a public health concern.
11:09 – I agree 100%, but closing the beaches and parking lots to locals is just too much. Why can’t they let us go to the beach? If people are grouping up and being stupid, cite them! You don’t shut down a whole thing just because some people might break the law, that’s why we have law enforcement. Go enforce the laws! Let the rest of us safely enjoy the beaches in what will be a scorching weekend! Concern about tourists flocking in? Just close the down town beaches and enforce the rules at the others. We’re now 6 months into this thing with no end in sight. We HAVE to adapt and start living with it. We can’t keep shutting down and cancelling every thing because they’re too lazy to enforce the rules!
TIREDMOM – the “officials” aren’t doing their job. Why can’t they enforce the rules? Why shut everything down for everyone? 6 months and they still haven’t figured out a way to allow us to live with this? It’s so easy – close the main beaches to deter most tourists and then patrol the others, citing those who are violating the rules. Or, just leave them all open and patrol. Do SOMETHING other than just shutting it all down. We should have a better solution by now.
AHCHOOO – yeah, a few suggestions I’ve mentioned here and in other threads: 1.) Patrol the beaches. There are plenty of cops, rangers, etc to have a couple go down the beach a couple times a day and cite people. They don’t need to be walking up and down the beach. Just stand in the parking lot of most the popular ones and look. If you see it, go deal with it or 2.) Have someone check IDs at parking lot entrances. Only allow locals in. This stops tourists, reduces crowds and is done every year in IV for Halloween. There’s a couple. I’m sure they can come up with more, it’s their job.
Take an uber then or find parking and walk. You can still walk and swim.
Jalama was set to close day use sat-mon. Well,it was closed this am. already.
Lucky for all the LAers that had reservations made 6 mos. ago,not so for SB county residents. We county res. where supposed to have 20-25 sites open ALL the time for SB county residents, but the people at the top don’t really give a @!#$%^about the very people who pay their salaries, and did away with them to out of towners who would pay up front for the sites allowing the county to charge and use the money for the reservations long before they camp(6 months).The unelected heads of this county should be fired and ashamed for blundering thru this covid mess and now closing the only places the public can cool off on a holiday where temps will soar in an area that most folks don’t have a/c( I do,but thats me).When someone dies of heat stroke, I’m sure they will count it as a covid death.
GENERALTREE – “take an uber” in during a pandemic? Are you serious? I won’t even ride in a car with my parents or other people I know, much less a complete stranger. Yeah, close the beaches (outdoor safe activities) but allow car rides with strangers…… genius.
Buses are free and you can cycle to the beach. Saw someone at the beach earlier riding a bike with a surfboard strapped to it.
“Just 2 more weeks”.
The people who make these decisions need to justify them with good arguments. If its BS, it should be called out.
Sounds like Santa Barbara better starts building a wall around its county.
How come you pick the U.S. and Sweden as negative examples? The mortality rate due to COVID related deaths is higher in Europe compared to the U.S.. The U.S. has very localized infection centers. A lot of deaths occurred in nursery homes due to failures of local governments.
Sweden has less than 6000 deaths from this virus (the usual cohorts – old and sick people have died from it). They didn’t shut down their country, they didn’t ask for, nor enforce the usage of masks. They don’t even have a second wave. After they realized that most of their deaths came out of nursing homes, they protected the vulnerable better. Since then the problems are gone. Meanwhile in Denmark a “second wave” is approaching which might cancel their Christmas markets as it does in Germany.
For the US not only the nursery homes are a problem. The population is in general very obese. A second large share of people who died from this virus were obese. On these cohorts the governments (federal+state) need to focus more and educate them. A person that does not fall into the nursery home/ over 80/ obese category is not at risk. As long as they distance themselves from other people, they shouldn’t be quarantined.
US and Sweden both had poor responses to the pandemic, and had much higher death totals as a result. Just compare Sweden to Norway or Denmark, and the US to anybody but other failed states.
For those interested in data regarding confirmed cases and deaths worldwide there is a chart available, search for johns hopkins covid 19 dashboard. One method used to determine fatalities, for example, the State of New Jersey has 15,985 Covid-19 deaths, divide this number by the population of New Jersey, 8,882,190, multiply this number by 100,000. Just shy of 180 deaths per 100k. California 34.7 per 100k. U.S.A. is 57.1 per 100k. For some reason, Sweden is mentioned in the comments, 57.78 per 100k. I’ve been keeping my eye on Sweden myself, they never shut down their economy, and I wondered when other countries would catch up to them. Spain has surpassed Sweden at 62.92 per 100k, and in viewing their graph, is having a surge in confirmed cases, fortunately this doesn’t appear to be followed by a comparable surge in deaths.
Families will spend time together this holiday weekend, and unfortunately with our beach closures, will not be able to spend time together at the beach where transmission is much less likely. Due to the heat, many will spend time together, in air-conditioned indoors, where the likelihood of transmission is very high. I would not be surprised if we end up losing more lives to this virus than if we had been allowed to keep our beaches open.