SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — Local yoga instructors are now considering legal action against the City of San Diego as the city cracks down on free classes along the coast.
Jackie Kowalik is a yoga instructor. One of her donation-based classes was shut down last week at Sunset Cliffs. On Saturday morning, she stopped by Pacific Beach where she knew another class was happening.
“When I got here the street was lined with park ranger trucks,” Kowalik explained. “There were three rangers standing in the grass overlooking a class doing yoga.”
Yoga instructors seek legal action over city ban on their beachside classes
After class, the park rangers moved in to give the teacher a ticket. She recorded the interaction on her cell phone.
The law for decades primarily focused on unpermitted food vendors but it was recently updated
to prohibit businesses from operating beach events and new language lists yoga and other activities as a “service.”
Kowalik said she asked park rangers for clarification on the dos and don’ts.
“What if it’s a completely free class? The answer was ‘no.’ What if a group of friends come down here and wants to do a yoga class, are you going to stop and interrupt them? The answer was ‘yes, we’ll find out if it’s an organized group.’” Kowalik said regarding the park rangers responses.
San Diego yoga teachers face ban on beachside classes
“If I give a summer camp money and say here take care of my child and they take a group of kids down to the beach and don’t have a permit, can they get kicked off the beach? A deer in headlights; they couldn’t answer me and to me that’s tells me it not just yoga that’s at risk,” she continued.
Several yoga teachers are now seeking legal action against the City of San Diego over the ban on their free, beachside classes. On Friday, a local attorney representing these instructors served a cease-and-desist letter to city leaders.
“I pay tax dollars to support these parks to support our city and I want to be able to use the park how I want. I want my kids to use the parks how they want,” Kowalik told FOX 5/KUSI.
She said they will be meeting with people from the mayor’s office on Friday.
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