North Rincon Beach (locally known as Bates Beach, named for the access from Bates Rd.) is at the southern tip of Santa Barbara County, just north of Rincon Point.

The beach was once a safe, family-friendly environment that attracted several hundred people on summer weekends. On the convenient southern end, people came to exercise their dogs and watch the world-class surfers practice their skills. The more remote northern end served many people who enjoyed a clothing-optional beach experience. These traditional uses of the beach served the public well for over 40 years.

Beach tourists ate at local restaurants, stayed in local hotels, and brought an estimated half-million dollars into the local Carpinteria economy. A cooperative attitude worked well for the local community and allowed law enforcement officials to focus on significant incidents.

In 2000, a few community members pressed the local sheriff to chase away the nudists from the northern end of the beach, hoping more clothed beachgoers would take their place. But instead, the eviction caused a significant decrease in the number of beachgoers at Bates, providing an opening for drug dealers and others who took advantage of the now-empty stretch of sand for their illegal activities.

People considered that part of the beach so unsafe that in 2009, a security trailer was placed in the parking lot to combat an increase in gangs, drug use and prostitution.

How to Restore Bates Beach

The menus above goes into more depth about each of the points below and show how, together, we can again make Bates Beach a safe destination for the enjoyment of the diverse population of the region.

(1) Establish a Beach Watch program with residents at the Point. Similar to Neighborhood Watch, a team of beachgoers are trained to observe and report any illegal activity or lewd behavior. Coordinating with local law enforcement will help make the beach much safer than it is today. At other beaches in the U.S. using this program, team volunteers wear special colored hats and make a point of welcoming all beach visitors, distributing trash bags, and watching for illegal activity.

(2) Build the proposed extension of the Coastal Trail above the beach to attract hikers and bikers to the beach. The beach needs more people; this will help. So will extending the local bus lines an extra half-mile to Bates to connect tourists and hikers at the end of the Trail to the hotels and restaurants in town.

(3) Encourage neighborhood and beachgoer participation in the annual California Beach Clean-up Day. Last year over 100 pounds of clothing, towels, cigarette butts, Styrofoam, and other debris was collected by Friends of Bates Beach volunteers.

(4) Publicize the benefits of Bates Beach to a public who may not know it is there. The threatened closure of nearby state parks and beaches provides a unique opportunity for such an effort.

(5) Reinstate clothing-optional use at the northern end of Bates beach. It is isolated and seldom-used, so reestablishing such use will not displace any current users, and previous experience has shown that, with proper signage, the chances for offense are very limited.

We feel a properly designated area for clothing-optional use is a valid recreation use, in the same way tennis courts, baseball fields, dog parks, bridle trails and other special interests are awarded land use. This will bring additional tourists to the beach, whose very presence will deter criminal activity.