Stricter beach restrictions to come in Santa Cruz County

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (KION) After an extremely busy weekend at Santa Cruz beaches, county officials tell KION stricter beach restrictions will be announced this week.

“Last weekend was unacceptable. We can’t have that happen again this weekend and into the future,” Santa Cruz County Supervisor John Leopold said.

Santa Cruz County officials said too many people flocked to the beaches, causing safety issues. In coastal areas like Pleasure Point, crowds parked along street. In some cases, neighbors said cars blocked their driveway.

The Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office handed out 127 parking citations over the weekend. They said the majority were people from out of the county.

“People were going as far as pushing out barricades that the county had put in place so they could open up more parking,” Sheriff's spokesperson Ashley Keehn said.

That forced the county to close even more parking lots.

“The biggest problem areas we saw were the north coast, Davenport area, 26 Ave. beach and Sunny Cove,” Keehn said.

Now, we can expect stricter measures to be announced later this week.

“We're looking at anything from not letting people go further than 15 miles from their home, all the way to possibly beach closures. We want to find something that’s effective and sustainable overtime,” Leopold said.

That could also include not allowing coolers at the beach and an even stronger crackdown on house rentals and hotel stays.

The new beach restrictions will be apart of the upcoming shelter-in-place order, which Leopold said will likely be announced on Thursday.