Laguna Beach outlines ‘surge 2025’ plan combining stewardship messaging and stepped-up enforcement

Laguna Beach officials on Monday outlined a combined stewardship-and-enforcement plan meant to blunt summer 2025 crowding and related quality-of-life problems, while asking residents to help shape long-term messaging.

City Manager Dave Kiff framed the effort as a dual approach: the city will emphasize enforcement and operational changes, and Visit Laguna Beach will lead a stewardship campaign intended to shift how day visitors treat the community. “To be prepared for the impacts of summer 20 25 and to chart a different path for how visitors, especially our day visitors, interact with and treat Laguna Beach,” Kiff told the town-hall audience.

The plan responds to last summer’s spikes in visitors and the city’s own data on calls for service and quality-of-life complaints. “The police department’s primary mission is to protect life and property,” Chief Jeff Calvert said during the presentation, adding that the department handled “over 51,000 calls for service” last year and that priority-1 calls averaged a 3 minute 30 second response time.

Key elements presented

- Enforcement and field staffing: Calvert and staff described a stepped-up enforcement posture. The city is budgeting for eight park rangers (the chief said the city worked with an over-hire authorization so nine rangers will be in the field this summer), and rangers will handle leash and anti-camping rules, drinking in public and other quality-of-life issues. Park rangers are equipped similarly to officers except for a firearm and will be visible across beaches and downtown; some are trained to work UTVs, ATVs and drones for rapid beach scans.

- Parking and citation tools: The city will expand the number of seasonal traffic aids who can write parking citations (about five of the 10–12 seasonal traffic aids will be empowered to issue tickets), bring back an experienced temporary citation writer, and adopt technology to alert enforcement staff when meters expire so officers can target expired meters rather than searching arbitrarily.

- Traffic and speed enforcement: Motor officer staffing will increase from two to four, with a fifth motor position (a dedicated traffic sergeant who also rides) to be added within months. The department plans data-driven deployments to target speeding and loud-exhaust complaints.

- Transit and microtransit expansions: The Summer Breeze coastal shuttle will begin service a month earlier on May 23 to incentivize riders from inland lots, and the Laguna Local microtransit service will extend evening hours beginning June 27 and expand pickups from canyon neighborhoods and areas beyond the 73.

- Trash, restrooms and day-porters: Public works changed trash-collection cycles mid-summer last year and will keep increased litter crews and a day-porter program (16 combined hours per day during summer, with funds reserved to add a third person if needed). Officials also said they are evaluating sturdier receptacles in problem spots and working with organizers to require additional temporary trash capacity for permitted events.

- Messaging and stewardship: Visit Laguna Beach’s marketing lead, John Zegoy, described a “pillar” approach focused on environment, culture and heritage to reframe tourists’ expectations and behaviors. “Our sample mission right now is that we exist to protect and celebrate the true ethos of Laguna Beach by inspiring visitors to connect authentically and respectfully with our local culture and by helping preserve our environment and our creative heritage,” Zegoy said. The organization plans community-led workshops, stakeholder panels and further survey outreach to refine messaging, QR-based information tools, and pillar-based interpretive content at beaches and arrival points.

What officials said about outcomes and limits

Kiff emphasized constraints on local authority: parking rates are set by local ordinance and constrained through the Coastal Commission and local coastal program, and the California Coastal Act broadly protects public access to beaches. Officials also said revenue from hotel bed taxes, parking and sales taxes funds city services, so mass reductions in visitation are not a simple budgetary choice.

Calvert cited enforcement results and problems from recent years: approximately 1,700 speeding citations and 340 loud-exhaust citations last year, 649 drinking-in-public citations, 236 dogs off-leash citations and more than 22,000 parking citations. The department recorded 284 DUI arrests last year (a 21% increase), of which 238 were identified as visitors; the police began sending notification letters to establishments identified in arrest reports. Calvert said violent and property crime decreased 23% year-over-year and 30% since 2021, but acknowledged community concerns center on visible quality-of-life issues.

Community input and next steps

Officials invited ongoing resident input: Visit Laguna Beach plans town-hall workshops and a steering process that will refine pillar messaging and create on-the-ground touchpoints for stewardship. The city encouraged residents to use the Ask Laguna service to report overflowing receptacles and other on-the-ground problems; staff said Ask Laguna routes issues to the right department for response. City staff will continue operational adjustments during the summer and said funds and staffing will be kept flexible to respond to observed conditions.

Residents at the meeting urged a mix of education and enforcement, suggested place-based interventions (docents at high-use accesses, QR codes at beachheads, improved trash receptacles and temporary restroom solutions), and pressed for better management of day-trip volumes in trouble spots such as Thousand Steps and Aliso Beach. Several speakers recommended incentives (discounts from local businesses for beach-clean participants), clearer signage about sensitive marine areas and collaborations with hotels and businesses to communicate stewardship prior to arrival.

Ending

City officials framed the plan as a mix of near-term operational steps and longer-term behavior change through Visit Laguna Beach’s stewardship program. Staff described several actions already in place for summer 2025 and asked residents to continue participating in surveys and stakeholder panels that will shape the program’s final messaging and deployment details.