Group wants to ban vehicles on beach leading to Oceano Dunes. Here’s where
Surfrider wants to limit driving on the beach in Oceano, so on Wednesday, the nonprofit launched a new campaign to do just that.
The San Luis Obispo chapter of Surfrider urged the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors, California State Parks and the California Coastal Commission to ban vehicles on a 2.2-mile stretch of the beach by the end of 2030.
Surfrider said the vehicle-free area should start at 0.3 miles north of Pier Avenue — the southern entrance to the Dunes — and end 1.9 miles south of Pier Avenue at Pole 4, SLO chapter chair Charles Varni said.
That would effectively block any vehicles from reaching the off-roading area of the Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area, as the northern entrance to the park at Grand Avenue would be cut off from the Dunes, too.
Varni said banning vehicles in this area would support the environment and attract visitors who currently avoid the beach.
“Tourists, families, walkers, birders — they don’t come down to Oceano Beach,” he said. “They go to a beach where there’s no vehicles.”
If the closure were enacted, Surfrider suggested two paths forward: Opening a new entrance to the state vehicular recreation area farther south, or phasing out any driving on the dunes entirely.
However, Surfrider isn’t advocating for either action. Instead, the nonprofit asked local and state leaders to devise a plan to end off-roading near the Pier Avenue entrance and come up with the funding to implement it.
When the California Coastal Commission voted to ban off-roading at the State Vehicular Recreation Area in 2021, it planned to continue to allow vehicle access on one mile of the beach near the Grand Avenue entrance for camping.
Later, however, a San Luis Obispo Superior Court judge said the commission did not have the authority to ban driving on the dunes, as such recreation is allowed by the county’s Local Coastal Program. A state court upheld this ruling.
Surfrider’s proposal aligns with the commission’s original plan, Varni said.
Additionally, Surfrider is focusing its advocacy on Oceano because it suffers the most environmental and economic impacts from recreational driving on the dunes, Varni said.
The Grand Avenue entrance is in Grover Beach, so it is outside of Surfrider’s scope of interest for this campaign, he said.
Meanwhile, Friends of Oceano Dunes president Jim Suty said off-roading attracts tourism, which boosts the local economy by millions of dollars.
While Friends of Oceano Dunes would support the construction of a southern entrance to the park, the nonprofit will fight any proposal to outright ban vehicle access on the beach, Suty said.
“Friends of the Oceano Dunes has spent 25 years protecting this park,” Suty said. “We will continue to do so.”
Should the State Vehicular Recreation Area have a southern entrance?
In 1982, the California Coastal Commission gave State Parks a coastal development permit to operate the State Vehicular Recreation Area with two temporary, beach-access entrances for vehicles: Pier Avenue in Oceano and Grand Avenue in Grover Beach, according to a Feb. 16, 2021, staff report from the commission.
The permit also “required State Parks to find alternate entrances to the park, including a potential southern entrance,” the report said.
State Parks conducted studies on alternative entrances, and based on the results, decided that the Grand Avenue and Pier Avenue park vehicle entrances should be permanent, the report said.
However, “the commission has never analyzed or authorized permanent use of these entrances, as is required by the base (coastal development permit). Thus, under the Coastal Act, they remain only temporarily authorized some 40 years later,” the report said.
In 2019, State Parks proposed adding a vehicle entrance and campground near Oso Flaco Lake, the Tribune previously reported.
But the public was concerned about traffic and environmental impacts in that area, and State Parks didn’t pursue the project.
Meanwhile, Varni said there’s potential for a campground and southern entrance to the park on the decommissioned Phillips 66 oil refinery property, which is owned by the county. State Parks suggested this idea in a 2021 Public Works Plan, The Tribune previously reported.
Surfrider said it’s up to the county, State Parks and the California Coastal Commission to decide how to proceed.
The nonprofit is circulating a petition to support the vehicle-free beach initiative online at https://bit.ly/4rbUg6C.
This story was originally published February 12, 2026 at 12:48 PM.
