Our Police Chief Lansdowne has stated something to the effect of wanting to keep drinking on the beach so the police can keep a better handle on the crowd. He said that removing alcohol from the beach would drive all the problems inland so he would rather keep drinking on the beach.

Can you tell me one other city either locally, i.e. the alcohol-free beaches of Oceanside, Del Mar on the 4th of July, La Jolla Shores, Coronado and Imperial Beach, as well as from beaches all over the country, where crime went up in the inland community once alcohol was removed from the beach?

My belief is that Chief Lansdowne said this at a public forum in Pacific Beach this Spring by thinking out loud but, was quoted so heavily by the media that he is sticking by this theory.

My thought is that when people congregate they can cause problems. When you take away the area to congregate the problems evaporate. When La Jolla took alcohol off their beaches at the Shores, crime dropped 80 percent and arrests by 40 percent. I haven’t heard of any crime waves moving inland in La Jolla, have you?

— JERRY HALL

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