Oceano Dunes closed to off-road riding 11 months ago. Now ATV shops are on the brink
Wayne Foster stood outside his shop, BJ’s ATV Rentals in Grover Beach on Tuesday afternoon, chatting with two tourists about renting all-terrain vehicles to ride at the Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area.
But when the conversation came to a close, the couple’s hopes of hopping on ATVs were dashed.
Foster’s ATV rental shop has been closed for nearly 11 months. He’s had no customers, no business, no income.
“If we don’t get to open before the bird season, I probably will be gone,” Foster said. “I haven’t made a dime since March 28, 2020. How many businesses can survive that long? I did get some payroll (Paycheck Protection Program loan) money, but that’s been gone. It’s used up. I’m living on savings.”
Foster’s business brings in about $2 million in income in a good year.
Collectively, BJ’s ATV Rentals and the three other local ATV rental shops that operate near the Oceano Dunes bring in about $11 million a year, or roughly 350,000 ATV riders, according to estimates by the shop owners.
Now, all of that income is gone.
Oceano Dunes closure continues due to COVID-19
In March 2020, California State Parks closed the Oceano Dunes to vehicles because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Visitors could still access the park near Pismo Beach by foot, biking or horseback riding.
The State Parks closure, which affected parks across California, was designed “to avoid dangerous visitation surges and help prevent the spread of coronavirus,” according to a March 27, 2020, news release from the agency.
Foster got a call at 5:15 p.m. that day “from our courteous parks department, who said, ‘You’re not open tomorrow,’ ” he recalled. “We had 300 reservations for Saturday and Sunday ... probably 25, 30% of them were already in town or on their way and mad at me.”
Although eight of the nine vehicular recreation areas managed by State Parks have since reopened to off-highway vehicle use, Oceano Dunes — the most popular OHV park in the state — will just this week begin to allow off-road recreation.
That was partially due to a cease-and-desist order from the California Coastal Commission issued in June after the Center for Biological Diversity found that State Parks interfered with western snowy plovers’ nesting area in the dunes. The bird is federally protected under the Endangered Species Act, which State Parks violated by not obtaining permits before it attempted to move the birds’ nesting area out of the way of potential vehicle traffic, according to the Coastal Commission.
That order from the Coastal Commission lasted through Oct. 1.
However, the Oceano Dunes did not reopen after the cease-and-desist order was lifted. State Parks’ camping reservation website, Reserve California, cited COVID-19 health concerns as the reason for extending the closure.
On Oct. 30, State Parks allowed street-legal vehicles to return to the Oceano Dunes in the first phase of its three-part reopening plan.
On Tuesday, the agency said it will move into the second phase of its reopening plan for the Oceano Dunes and Pismo State Beach on Friday. This would allow for limited OHV use and camping.
But that doesn’t mean Foster’s business can resume full operations.
State Parks said in a Tuesday news release that the ATV concession “will continue to be temporarily closed,” meaning only those who own ATVs can ride on the dunes.
That’s unfair to lower-income people, according to Steve Dayton, who owns Steve’s ATV Rentals Oceano.
“You’re cutting out a huge chunk of families that can’t afford their own ATVs. ... For 50 or 60 bucks, they can ride one for a couple hours on the beach,” Dayton said. “They don’t have to have a typical truck and a toy box with the toys in it.”
In contrast, he said, ATV owners can have as much as $150,000 invested in their vehicles, trailers, trucks and camping setups.
“It’s just discriminatory that somebody suggested this is supposed to be an owners-only beach or an owner-only riding area,” Dayton added.
California state parks open to off-highway vehicle use
While Oceano Dunes was closed to off-road riding, other state vehicular recreation areas in California reopened to OHVs.
Dayton owns three ATV rental shop locations along the West Coast, including one in Palm Springs and one in Washington state.
His Palm Springs location services rentals to the Ocotillo Wells State Vehicular Recreation Area, a desolate stretch of desert just north of the border between Mexico and the United States.
Ocotillo Wells has been open to OHV riders since Sept. 4 after closing in March due to the pandemic. California’s seven other vehicular recreation areas are also open to riders.
“We’re seeing our (Oceano Dunes) customer base literally move to go ride in another area,” Dayton said. “We would have seen probably a 33% increase in business in 2020 at the Oceano Dunes because the economy was that hot, had we been allowed on the beach.”
That estimated increase would have translated into about $3.63 million of income for the ATV rental shops that service the Oceano Dunes.
Residents, conservationists react to Oceano Dunes OHV use closure
When the Oceano Dunes closed to OHV use, some say it brought back a long-awaited peace to the dunes.
“It was wonderful out there — people finally started accessing the beach on horseback, on foot, on a bicycle. People were surfing,” said Jeff Miller, senior conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity. “And people were like, ‘Wow, it’s really nice to be out here and not have vehicles, you know, whizzing by.’”
Some Oceano residents protested when the dunes reopened in October to limited, street-legal vehicle use.
Oceano resident April Drury, who told The Tribune in October that she grew up riding on the dunes, said that vehicles on the beach limit the area where people can safely walk.
“Oceano lacks any real sort of outdoor parks or venues or areas for social distancing and exercising during a pandemic,” Drury said. “(The beach) was our front porch, and now we’re giving away our health and safety to tourism.”
Charles Varni, another Oceano resident, said in October that he has been working to limit the number of vehicles on the beach for 40 years and was relieved when the park was closed over the summer. Varni said he was “disappointed and scared” of the reopening.
“Thousands of people have now experienced the dunes without vehicles on it,” Varni said. “They realize more personally what the impact of vehicles are and that this is a really precious habitat.”
State Parks wants to permanently close Oceano Dunes to ATV rentals
On Dec. 31, State Parks released its final draft Public Works Plan and subsequent Environmental Impact Report for the Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area and Pismo State Beach. The documents, if approved by the Coastal Commission, document the future development of the parks for the next 20 to 30 years.
The Public Works Plan includes one change that local ATV rental shop owners say will effectively destroy their businesses.
In April 2022, State Parks plans to not renew its 10-year contracts with OHV and ATV rental concessions that allow visitors to rent vehicles to ride on the dunes.
As part of their contract with State Parks, ATV rental shops are allowed to provide ATVs and other OHVs to customers to ride on the dunes, as long as they pay a percentage of their gross income. For Foster, that’s 10% of his gross monthly income, or about $220,000 in 2019.
“Phasing out of concessions is anticipated to limit the number of inexperienced OHV riders in the riding area, as visitors would have to bring in their own OHVs,” the plan states.
ATV rental shop owners learned of the move in a cheerful email from Oceano Dunes Parks Superintendent Kevin Pearce on New Year’s Eve.
“2021 is a big question mark that I can only hope brings us far more than 2020 gave us. In a good way,” Pearce wrote in the email to the ATV rental shop owners and other OHV concessionaires. “Because face it, it couldn’t be any worse. Could it?”
Gail Marshall, owner of Arnie’s ATV Rentals Oceano, said she’s worried about State Parks’ plan to discontinue her contract.
“Do I have a plan? No, I don’t have a plan,” she said. “First of all, I have over 100 ATVs I can’t really turn around and sell right now. So, you know, I’m kind of stuck between a hard spot and a rock right now.”
“This is my only business. It’s been my baby for 30 years,” she said. “And now we’re all going to suffer.”
Marshall and other ATV rental shop owners say what was once an amicable relationship with State Parks is now non-existent. Often, the shop owners said they can’t get a response from State Parks when they call or email questions about its plans for Oceano Dunes.
The business owners say they see their livelihoods, and those of their employees, slipping away as the OHV closure continues.
Marshall had to layoff her 10 employees early in the pandemic shutdown. In addition to phone and utility bills, she’s had to continue paying for insurance and registration for the ATVs in the event that she is allowed to rent them again.
“My employees are like family to me. Now they’re all hurting so bad,” she said. “And I still have all those bills I have to pay. Bills are very expensive just to keep the door shut.”
This story was originally published February 18, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
