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.balboa/ No Dogs Allowed?

Friday, March 03, 2006  Terry

Here's one thing I love about visiting Southern California: Balboa Island. I don't know why, exactly. It's overcrowded, the shops are mostly full of useless junk I could care less about, and there really isn't much beach to speak of. But I love it anyway. (Maybe it's the Balboa Bars.)

Vasco Nunez De Balboa: Explorer to the Pacific Ocean (Explorers!)
by Arlene Bourgeois Molzahn

But if I didn't love Balboa Island anyway, here would be one more reason for me to not love Balboa Island:
Daily Pilot: Island's dog days: ...they are asking the Newport Beach City Council for an exemption that would ban dogs from Balboa's shores. “The beaches on Balboa Island -- as opposed to the ocean beaches -- are very small and intensely used, especially in the summer,” John Cunningham of the Balboa Island Improvement Assn. told the council during a study session Tuesday. On Thursday, the Balboa Island Improvement Assn.'s board of directors voted to send a letter to the City Council asking for an exemption from the animals-on-the-beach ordinance. Association members contend that problems associated with dogs on beaches, such as animal waste and dogs running without leashes, are particularly concentrated on Balboa Island, Cunningham said.
Overcrowding in all its forms is never, ever, an animal problem. It is always a human being problem. There are simply too many people--people like me--who like or love Balboa Island despite all the reasons not to. Furthermore, just about any “dog problem” that exists is more of a human problem than a dog problem, and banning them from Balboa Island will not fix the people problem on Balboa Island. Want to improve life on Balboa Island? Here are a few ideas (just off the top of my head):balboa ferry
  1. Make littering (including dog waste) a caning offense, like vandalism in Singapore.
  2. Don't allow cars onto Balboa Island, like they do (don't?) on Catalina Island. Look around, people, the cars on Balboa are causing one hell of a problem. They're everywhere, and there's no place to put them all. And just imagine the real estate value of all those “roads” that the cars “move” along (though during peak hours I understand, they rarely move at all. (Balboa Island is one of the most expensive real estate markets in North America outside of Lower Manhattan. A two-bedroom house with a water view from the living room can be had for about $3 million. --via wikipedia)
  3. Only allow cars that arrive by ferry. Since the ferry only takes three cars at a time... well, that would clean up the car problem, but I suppose dogs would still walk on over the bridge.
  4. Remove the bridge.
  5. Speaking of real estate values (it was a few line item ago, but I'm counting on you to stay with me here), what do you suppose you could get for the beaches themselves? Surely there must be a developer interested in that property... and an architect who could build something right onto the water. Not only would this make the beaches less attractive to dog walkers, it would decrease the likelihood of outsiders from coming on to the island. And the sale of beaches could go right into city coffers.
  6. Hey, how about just turning the beach into a mall encircling the island. Can you imagine the taxes the city could rake in? What a boon for the economy, hugh? And isn't mall-front property better than beach-front property? The value of mall security alone would make it worth the loss of the beach.
  7. And finally, Balboa could establish its own currency. Maybe a whole Balboa Bar could be an approximation of a dollar. And you'd have to spend your bars before they melted, so money made on the island would have to be spent immediately (or stored in a freezer). This would make it more difficult for out-of-towners to do business on Balboa Island, thus making it a less attractive desti-Nation, thus making it less attractive to dog walkers...
Okay. These are my ideas. You can have them. They're all yours. No charge. And if you care about Balboa Island, and you live down there, could you do something about this, please? Aw heck, I'm not gonna wait for y'all. I made a petition. So if you want to sign a petition to keep the dog laws as they are on Balboa Beaches, go here: Don't Make Balboa Island Beaches Dog Free. That is all.

aXis

℅ Balboa Island
℅ Balboa Island at wikipedia
℅ Newport Beach
℅ The O.C. on Fox
℅ The O.C. - The Complete First Two Seasons
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