By Mary Willmont

Beach & Bay Press

Phil Bonham, president of the Management Alert Group, told the Mission Beach Town Council that beach residents must work to rid their community of gangs within 90 days or next summer would be intolerable.

Bonham, who has worked extensively in Southeast San Diego on gang problems, told the MBTC at their June 12 meeting that gangs wee in the area to sell drugs.  “Gangs are well organized and they’re in the business of selling drugs,” Bonham said.  “If you want them out of your community then you have to disrupt their business.”

Bonham presented a basic plan successfully used to rid other areas of gangs.  He encouraged people to act immediately because “these gangs are testing you people.  They are going to own your area if you don’t act now. In some ways they already own it,” he stated.

Bonham’s plan requires removing graffiti within 24 hours.  “Gangs use graffiti to advertise and stake out territories,” said Bonham.   His other recommendations were participating in SDG&E’s Dusk to Dawn lighting program, having only call-out pay phones in the area, setting up sobriety check points on weekends for exiting traffic, paid parking and pressuring the Red Onion to cooperate with the community in dealing with problems caused by the Red Onion’s existence.

Bonham said the increase in murders and violence in the bay area indicates that Mission Bay Park has already been divided into territories by the gangs.  “Now is the time to do something,” he said.  Bonham said there is a sequence to an area being gang occupied.  Mission Beach, he warned, is rapidly moving toward the end of that sequence.

In other business, Bob Moore, chairman of the alcohol committee, said the City Council voted to place an emergency ban into effect.  The ban will prohibit alcohol consumption west of Mission Boulevard from Palisades Park in Pacific Beach to the south jetty in Mission Beach and Crystal Pier is excluded.

The bill also reduced drinking hours from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m. on all oceanfront beaches from the southern boundary of Sunset Cliffs to the southern boundary of Torrey Pines State Park except where a 24-hour ban exists.  Mayor Maureen O’Conner was the only opposing vote.

John Fry, founder of the Pacific Beach Historical Society, closed the meeting with a slide show of Mission Beach Park.   The next meeting will be July 16 at 7 p.m. at 3116 Mission Blvd.  The public is invited.

Reprinted from

Beach & Bay Press