tMo
By Tom Modugno
We were down at Haskells Beach last Saturday and took a walk up towards the pier. A beautiful afternoon, the beach was crowded with locals and tourists enjoying the day. As we passed the beach access for the Bacara, we noticed all this ugly debris in the embankment, so we took a closer look.
There’s a lot of black tarp that looks like a plastic liner, probably a failed attempt to retain the hillside. There’s also several black plastic irrigation lines and white PVC piping that was surely installed by the Bacara and now is being washed out to sea. (When they built the hotel they put irrigation all over the grounds to maintain the “native landscaping”, still visible on the public access trail.)
There’s also quite a bit of old steel piping that’s probably remnants of the oil processing days.(Why weren’t they required to clean all that before they built a hotel on top of it?)
All in all, an eyesore. Yet, there were guests all around taking photos and even a wedding happening right in front of the mess.
Seems to me, the Ritz Carlton would have a little concern about their reputation and the cleanliness of their fine resorts. And how about their guests’ safety? Rusty pipes sticking out of the hillside can’t be safe.
Maybe they haven’t noticed? A friend said he called the Bacara a week ago and spoke to the manager about it, and the manager told him “he would talk to the grounds people”. So far no change. Not sure if the Coastal Commission would be able to help here? Maybe if enough concerned citizens call the Bacara they’ll clean it up?
Should we just look the other way and ignore it?
Getting Coastal Commission permission to do anything even remotely in their jurisdiction is vastly and costly. Government over-reach, even when well-intended often cuts off common sense responses.
SB sand…just on the off chance you didn’t bother reading the post…Tom said his friend DID know, so you can rest assured that the Bacara has known.
The Bacara has dirty secrets that their guest invariably find out about during a stay… The air stinks from the processing plant near the Haskells parking lot. The Train makes a lot of noise. The beach is full of tar and trash. The ocean is not a clear and pristene as their brochure deplicts, and is cold during the summer( most East Coast Visitors are shocked it’s not like Hawaii! 🙂
It’s nothing like the others you mentioned. The Biltmore and Miramar are in vibrant communities where restaurants and other activities are available within walking distance.. The Bacara is in BFE Goleta. There is nothing close by and you are essentially stuck there, which would be fine with great restaurants, shops and walking trails. The Bacara has been polluting and screwing locals since it opened. It never should have been approved.
Hugeee problem. Next time your berks fall off call the police
I think I misunderstood your comment. I meant the location wasn’t right for a hotel. It should have been left as it was for surfers and local beach bums.
I hope that you informed hotel management so that they know about it and address it. Just on the off chance that they DIDN’T know for some reason.
Sure is different than the good ol’ days. Those days were worth a lot more than what the Bacarra has to offer. The company was much better too.
A magical place! Back in 1960 when I was still at UCSB friends lived in one of the old houses up on the bluff where the Bacara is now. They built a shelter from driftwood down on the beach and found artifacts from the Chumash that once lived along the creek. Drums, wine, pot and peyote were a part of the scene. Once we harvested gallons of amazing honey produced primarily from eucalyptus flowers by a huge bee colony that had settled into an abandoned wooden box that had once been for electrical power. Oh, to be young again!
Well, regardless of whether the Bacara should be there or not; they should definitely clean up the mess. That black plastic will degrade and fall into the ocean – to combine with the rest of the degrading plastic in the ocean. I’m calling the management today to ask what they’re going to do about it. I would encourage others to call too. The fact is that it ISN’T the good ‘ol days – but this is something you can do today.
I don’t understand why the CHUMASH don’t take over the Barcara (eminent domain) and make it a CASINO ON THE BEACH! Way better place for a Casino than the SYV….
I totally agree that the hotel is the responsible party. To be fair, due to the pandemic, hotels everywhere are scrambling to survive. It’s truly shocking that so many businesses have no plan to survive catastrophic events. I guess cash reserves are not what most businesses want to have.
Labor unions hate cash reserves. Or putting building and maintenance needs over personnel demands. Fact of life in employee-management negotiations. Do you care more about buildings than you do people? Employee morale becomes a factor of cash incentives, rather than individual work ethic.
Well, we still need labor unions or else we’d all be making 2 bucks an hour!!! Capitalism has its downfalls.