TGWTG User Blogs

Santa Cruz, California for as long as I can remember has been a bright spot for Northern California tourism. And why not? It has several interesting things to do there, copious in beaches, restaurants, and of course, home the famed Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk (a somewhat overrated place, but you can still have fun there). It's a very surfer/skater-friendly place, loaded with surf and skate shops as well as many skate parks here and there throughout the town, so kids interested in that stuff will have alternate things to do besides riding The Giant Dipper 14-kajillion times. (I've been to one of them, and it was actually quite a good park).

When I was younger, my family and relatives from around the area would vacation in Santa Cruz for the 4th of July nearly every year. We would go to a certain beach, barbeque food, other miscellanous beach stuff, then later at night, watch fireworks or light off some of our own. Though it's been some time since we did that, my family decided to take a short trip down there for this 4th of July. And when we got there...well, things had changed in the last few years.

We got to Santa Cruz and drove to the beach that we had always visited in the past, only to find that the entire perimeter of it had been fenced off and was heavily patroled by police. What the hell was this? Seriously, there wasn't any way we could get into the beach albiet two or three entrances short of floating on our food coolers around a nearby rock wall and hoping the current takes us to the shore. There were still plenty of beach-goers, but seriously, they looked like a bunch of caged animals. It looked as though the nearest prison decided to rent out the beach to let the inmates have a 4th of July Field Day. 

Since the fencing blocked off much of the old parking spaces we used in years past, we had to spend $5 on a parking pass that allowed us to be able to try and find parking within a 15 mile radius of the beach, which was no easy feat. And that wasn't even the worst part. All around the beach (and as we would discover on every other major beach in town) were signs taped to sawhorses that said:

No Fireworks or Alcohol on the Beach. $1000 fine.

Suck my balls, Santa Cruz.  Seriously, what the hell happened in the last few years? No fireworks? Are you kidding me? Isn't that sort of the point of celebrating the 4th of July? And no alcohol? I mean, that doesn't really affect me since I'm not old enough to (legally ;)) drink, but that's just cutting the balls off of every adult who happens to be visiting. Bullshit, that's what this is. Bullshit. Plus, not only that, but every bag that we brought was subject to police inspection. What is this, a fucking airport? The worst I heard was that police were big on confiscating little lunch-sized bags of potato chips. I'm not kidding. At the fucking beach. They might as well have fined people for swimming more than 10 feet out past the shore.  

Apparently, the police were on such high alert this year (and apparently the past couple of years) because a rise of gang violence around this time, and apparently a few people were stabbed years back. I understand upping the police watch on public places, but being a few steps below cavity searches is a tad over the top.

Quickly deciding to hell with that, my family went to our hotel and checked in, with the hope that we might be able to catch fireworks from the boardwalk from where we were staying. But nope, the boardwalk had cancelled their fireworks show since a few years ago because of...gang violence...what? 

Seriously, it's as though Santa Cruz wanted to oust their tourists. In fact, if that were the case, it probably would have been cheaper to just build a wall around the entrance at the city and hire two or three gunmen to direct incoming traffic away.  We had to drive all the way to the nearing city, Aptos, just to find a beach without so many damned restrictions, and even still, we saw a couple of families getting heckled by sheriffs on ATVs because their dogs weren't on leashes. Cut me a fucking break. Worst of all, they had to call in 4 of those assholes just to kick one family off the beach for said infraction. I heavily considered just stealing one of their ATVs just to piss them off.

While I still had a good time in Santa Cruz, it definitely could have been much better if Santa Cruz's Board of Tourism took their heads out of their asses. Considering that tourism appears to be one of thier major industries, I would think it would be a good idea for them to rethink the way they handle 4th of July. Much like how I'm going to rethink returning to Santa Cruz for future vacations over the summer. The day I find a beer that's worth $1000, I'll get back to you.

 Santa Cruz's Board of Tourism: 2/10