The Pacific Beach Town Council\u2019s new Community Partner Spotlight debuted at its Feb. 18 meeting, with Discover PB, the local business improvement district, as the inaugural presentation.<\/p>\n
With 1,500 businesses on its rolls, Discover PB is the largest of 18 BIDs in San Diego in both number of businesses and geographic size. It also operates prominent community events such as the annual BeachFest, Holiday Parade, Restaurant Walk and weekly PB Farmers Market.<\/p>\n
Discover PB Board President Shylah Hales and Executive Director Sunny Lee explained the nonprofit organization\u2019s purpose, activities and goals.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur job is to support local businesses, activate public space and to invest back in the community,\u201d Lee said. \u201cOur goal is to strengthen the businesses in our community and help drive our local economy. Our number one priority is bringing people into the businesses in PB and helping those thrive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Composed of new board members aside from Hales and Vice President Krista Marcheschi, the speakers listed more outreach and engagement with businesses as well as growing and diversifying funding as top priorities for the year.<\/p>\n
Discover PB\u2019s fiscal base is derived from an annual assessment fee, typically $50 to $200 depending on business size according to Lee, that is included in the business tax certificate bill. Applying to both storefront and home-based businesses, that fee raised $154,000 in fiscal year 2024 or roughly 20% of the total budget.<\/p>\n
Those resources help pay for activities such as BeachFest and the farmers market, which generate even more revenue.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe other thing we\u2019re trying to do is grow our events,\u201d Lee said. \u201cWe have a few staple events that are already really great, but we\u2019re trying to leverage those in order to increase revenue.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet reaching out to every business is a perennial challenge because of turnover and the district\u2019s size.<\/p>\n
While the city provides updated lists of establishments, it doesn\u2019t include contact information, Lee said. Discover PB\u2019s staff of three must cover the largest BID in the city on their own.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have an address,\u201d Lee said. \u201cWe have a name. We have an owner (though) it doesn\u2019t always connect. But we have no email address for any of the businesses \u2026 So it\u2019s up to us to go door-to-door and reach out to every single business. And a lot of them are home based.\u201d<\/p>\n
In order to engage businesses more and provide information, Discover PB launched a video series on its Instagram page in January called PB Connect, featuring interviews with community leaders and business owners.<\/p>\n
Discover PB also offers a variety of services to businesses. Its Clean and Safe Program provides trash collection, clean up and security, while other services include beautification programs, advocacy, workshops and other resources.<\/p>\n
Because business needs vary, Discover PB tailors its services to each, Lee said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome people might just want the promotion aspect of it,\u201d she said. \u201cThey want to be included in the events and they want to be seen by the public and the community that\u2019s here in PB. Some people do need me to go to City Hall and advocate for them and say, hey these are the things that our businesses are saying are most important.\u201d<\/p>\n
As an example, Lee cited Discover PB\u2019s role in helping businesses establish streeteries when problems with city permitting became a major obstacle last year.<\/p>\n
Resident Dave Schmidt asked whether Discover PB is making efforts to find businesses to fill the vacant storefronts along Garnet Avenue.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs there anything exciting coming other than Grocery Outlet?\u201d he asked. \u201cOther than that, we\u2019re getting tattoo parlors and smoke shops in all the empty storefronts. What are you guys doing to try to get some good businesses in?\u201d<\/p>\n
Marcheschi said a new restaurant by Grind and Prosper Hospitality (which owns PB Shore Club and Haole Shack in PB) called Coco Fuego will be opening in the former location of Union Kitchen and Tap at 832 Garnet Ave. by late summer, and 12 HRS Matcha will move to larger digs at the former PB Cantina site at 1140 Garnet Ave.<\/p>\n
Marcheschi said filling up empty storefronts with new businesses is not a simple task because there are a lot of moving parts.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt does have a lot to do with the property owners themselves, the rent prices, all that,\u201d she said. \u201cWe all know everyone is struggling.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hales emphasized that Discover PB\u2019s primary concern is Pacific Beach itself since businesses need a healthy community for healthy profits.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re really focused on what already works while intentionally building capacity for the future,\u201d she said. \u201cWe put on a lot of community events, but we\u2019re more than just community events. How do we make our community better is our major focus here.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for other discussions, Marcella Bothwell, the PB Planning Board chair, gave an update on the proposed Vela Tower on Turquoise Street.<\/p>\n
According to Bothwell, the city issued its fourth round of comments on the project, calling on the developer, Kalonymus LLC, to clarify which units are slated as commercial or residential because the developer has used both designations for the same units in different parts of the plan, which is not allowed in the municipal code.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they\u2019re residential, they actually don\u2019t qualify for anything more than the 75 residential units that they already have,\u201d Bothwell said. \u201cWe\u2019ll see what the developer comes back with. They\u2019ll come back with something.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the meantime, attorneys at Neighbors for a Better California, a community advocacy group also chaired by Bothwell, are composing a comments letter that will list all the problems with the project; chief among them that it doesn\u2019t qualify for a ministerial permit, which would allow it to bypass public hearings and discretionary approvals.<\/p>\n
The letter should be completed in \u201ca couple of weeks\u201d Bothwell said, adding it will serve other purposes than merely a legal argument.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will be something we\u2019re going to be shopping around and asking for donations because this will be in the courts,\u201d Bothwell said. \u201cSo we\u2019re going to need help.\u201d<\/p>\n
The meeting took a somber turn when there was a moment of silence in memory of Qwente Bryant, the 41-year-old manager of Tavern at the Beach killed in the early morning of Feb. 7 while walking home from work during a hit-and-run incident on Garnet Avenue near Ingraham Street.<\/p>\n
Three weeks earlier, on Jan. 17, Hudson O\u2019Loughlin, 6, was fatally struck by a hit-and-run vehicle while riding his bicycle on the Pacific Beach Drive sidewalk.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs unthinkable as it is, it happened again,\u201d PBTC President Charlie Nieto said.<\/p>\n
During the police report, Community Relations Officer Jessica Dishman spoke about the resulting community outcry.<\/p>\n
\u201cDue to the last very, very tragic incidents that unfortunately happened very close together, my inbox has been filled with complaints that there\u2019s zero enforcement; no one\u2019s seeing enforcement,\u201d Dishman said.<\/p>\n
To demonstrate police responsiveness, she said police had written more than 5,700 traffic citations last year in PB alone, or 110 per week, despite limited resources to cover the city\u2019s second largest police division at 41.3 square miles.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have our motorcycle officers that are the ones who are doing most of the traffic citations because, to be honest, our patrol officers are out there being first responders,\u201d Dishman said. \u201cWe are out there going to traffic accidents and to medical calls and all the crime. We have two \u2026 motor officers who are dedicated to stay here in Northern.\u201d<\/p>\n
Savannah Stallings, the new PB representative for Councilmember Joe LaCava, gave the city Transportation Department\u2019s latest report on potholes.<\/p>\n
Between July 1 and Dec. 31, 2025, the city repaired 609 potholes in District 1 out of 617 requests, with fixes averaging 3.7 days from the initial request. In addition, Stallings said 117 streetlights in Pacific Beach were repaired through parking meter revenues from Oct. 27 to Dec. 31.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe new standard is that if the city responds to a pothole request, they\u2019ll patch any surrounding that they see,\u201d Stallings said. \u201cHopefully, those types of things you\u2019re seeing as improvements.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pacific Beach Town Council\u2019s new Community Partner Spotlight debuted at its Feb. 18 meeting, with Discover PB,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":633438,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,132297,270096,26064,3549,22509,7264,270098,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,270097],"class_list":{"0":"post-633437","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-discover-pb","12":"tag-fatal-accidents-in-pacific-beach","13":"tag-pacific-beach-town-council","14":"tag-san-diego","15":"tag-san-diego-police-department","16":"tag-sandiego","17":"tag-turquoise-tower-pacific-beach","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-usa","24":"tag-vela-tower"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116175357045611117","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}