Here comes Mission Beach fly season

Mission Beach residents and businesses are gearing up to fight the annual fly infestation, and some are saying the problem is made worse by short-term rentals that have diminished the number of full-time residents.

"Seventy percent of the population are transient vacationers who dispose of the entire contents of their refrigerators every week," according to a letter Gary Wonacott sent to mayor Kevin Faulconer.

The infestations — largely by blowflies (also referred to as bottle flies) — began in 2010, according to the Mission Beach Town Council, after the city cut trash pick-up from twice weekly to once a week. The flies hatch in garbage and need six to eight days to mature from eggs to adults, according to a study done by an entomologist.

In January, city councilmember Lorie Zapf asked the city's independent auditor to include $40,000 in funds for weekly street vacuuming from July to September but noted that asking didn't mean the city would include the request in the final budget.

"It's a matter of seeing what we can get funded," said Donna Cleary, Zapf’s spokesperson. "We're not going to be able to address the causes but we're going to do everything we can to help."

Meanwhile, restaurants such as Kojack's have spent their own money to keep the fly infestation at bay.

"Last year we tried our best to keep the flies out of our restaurant and off the patio," said Mike Soltan, who owns the restaurant on Ventura Place. "The flies come from the alleys behind us where other trash cans are, and there's only so much we can do."

Soltan has installed fans and blowers to keep the flies downwind, and his employees now clean the city's trash cans that are in front of the restaurant, he said.

"They are emptied every day, but the cans themselves are filthy and the city employees won't clean them, so we do."

Soltan, who also has a rental property, said his management company hires a company to clean the property's trash cans for $250 a month, and that works.

"What else can you do?" Soltan said. "We want the rentals to be nice and when we have the extra service, they are."

In the past few years, Mission Beach restaurateurs say they've had negative reviews on Yelp! that mentioned the flies; one restaurant was docked in a county inspection because of the insects, according to the town council.

But representatives from the mayor's office and Zapf's office have told residents that the People's Ordinance of 1919 — which forbids the city from charging for trash pick-up from residences — doesn't allow the city to schedule or bill for the second pick-up.

Residents have tried to get the San Diego County Vector Control Program to work on fly abatement, but the county concluded that the flies are not a threat to the health of residents.

"It's definitely annoying to have flies landing on your plate when you're having a meal outside," said vector control’s Chris Conlan. "But they don't rise to the level of being a threat to public health."