City winning battle with Mission Beach flies

A second weekly trash pick-up launched last month in Mission Beach has sharply reduced the swarms of buzzing flies that have damaged tourism and discouraged outdoor dining in recent summers.

The significant positive impact of restoring the second trash pick-up, which was eliminated in 2010 as part of city budget cuts, vindicates critics of some less aggressive solutions the city previously tried.

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Residents, restaurant owners and community leaders said Tuesday that the successful reduction in flies shows the importance of the city extending the second trash pick-up beyond a one-year trial.

City officials, however, said when agreeing in June to spend $80,000 on a second pick-up through Oct. 1 that Mission Beach would need to come up with funding for summer 2017, possibly by collecting fees through a maintenance assessment district.

The second pick-up is crucial because flies have a six-day gestation cycle, allowing them to flourish when trash is picked up every seven days but sharply limiting their presence when collections occur every three or four days.

Mission Beach struggles with flies more than other parts of San Diego because it has high-density housing, relatively little open space and scavengers who pry open trash cans and rip into bags searching for recyclable items, which allows flies to enter and lay eggs.

The winter population of Mission Beach is 5,700, but tourists increase that number to an estimated 20,000 in the more fly-friendly summer.

“I haven’t had one person complain about the flies, and by now we would have a ton of people complaining,” said Sara Mattinson, who owns the Olive Café restaurant on Santa Clara Place. “People can sit out on the patio and enjoy their food.”

That’s in stark contrast to summer 2015, the fifth consecutive year the fly population in Mission Beach had gotten worse, she said.

“Last year people were saying they weren’t coming back,” Mattinson said. “They said ‘If I’m going to spend $5,000 a week, I want to be able to sit outside and enjoy my patio, so I’m going to spend that money someplace else.’”

The fly problem also saddled restaurants in Mission Beach with hundreds of negative Yelp! reviews, and some got hygiene citations from the county Health Department.

The fly population has typically exploded later in summer when temperatures are higher than in June and early July, so the near absence of swarming flies in mid-August is a strong sign, Mattinson said.

“It’s not all the way gone, but I’d say it’s 85 percent to 90 percent better,” she said. “The timing was actually perfect.”

The city launched the second pick-up on Saturday, July 2 and will continue the bonus service through Saturday, Oct. 1. Trash is also still picked up each Tuesday in Mission Beach.

“It’s made a big difference,” said Fred Day, president of the Mission Beach Town Council. “Last year the trash was just awful and overflowing, but this year is different. It’s working nicely.”

Day said the council has notified residents about the second pick-up with emails and fliers, but said many people haven’t begun putting their trash out on Saturdays because they are unaware of the change.

That means a second pick-up might be even more effective next summer after a year of promotion, he said.

Mary Saska, a longtime community leader and former restaurant owner, said the city will conduct a study this fall to determine how much impact the second pick-up had.

She said the impressive results will help residents and merchants make the case that a second pick-up is the only viable solution. Previous efforts have included street vacuuming, special liners in trash cans and door hangers to educate tourists.

The city has been reluctant to restore the second pick-up based on concerns that all neighborhoods should be treated equally.

A 1919 San Diego law known as the People’s Ordinance generally provides for once-a-week trash pickup for single-family homes in non-gated communities, at no charge beyond paying property taxes. City officials say singling out Mission Beach for a second free pick-up could potentially create legal problems.

Councilwoman Lorie Zapf successfully lobbied the rest of the council this summer to add a second pick-up for 2016, but Zapf said a maintenance assessment district would probably be necessary going forward.

Saska said the paperwork is being drawn up for such a district, which would require a mail ballot vote by property owners.

But Saska and Mattinson said the tax revenue generated by tourism in Mission Beach should cover the second pick up. They point out that such revenue is the justification for additional police and lifeguards assigned to Mission Beach each summer.

“Other places in the city don’t get the influx of people that we do in the summer,” Mattinson said. “The city increases every other service in Mission Beach but garbage.”