Tahoe locals seek to pull welcome mat
Protests over visitors showing lack of ‘respect’
If the walls are closing in but pandemic travel sounds a bit too sketchy, don’t worry, Lake Tahoe tourism honchos say. They have the answer.
“We’ll help you put your toe in the water — literally — here at Tahoe South,” according to the Lake Tahoe Visitors Bureau website. “Travel therapy is what you need.” And sure enough, throughout the summer thousands of travelers have been heeding that call and streaming to Tahoe’s hotels and rental houses for the solace and beauty of the Sierra Nevada.
But it turns out that all that travel therapy is now grinding on the nerves of some local folks.
A vocal contingent of area residents wants to rescind the invitation to visit, saying overnight and day visitors are bombarding the region, clogging roadways and leaving trash and the deadly coronavirus in their wake.
Locals across the region and other communities were planning protests Friday and over the weekend to lament the lack of enough infrastructure to handle the hordes. Beach trash bins have been overflowing and cars are parked illegally, they
say. Masks and social distancing are often absent.
Yet even as concerned residents painted protest signs Friday morning, thousands of families looking to escape tripledigit temperatures across Northern California were loading their cars with bicycles and bathing suits for a weekend up at Lake Tahoe or Truckee.
Residents like Josh Lease have had enough.
“It’s just a lot of frustration building up for a while,” said the Meyers resident. “The pandemic is bringing to light all the issues South Lake Tahoe is feeling.”
Lease posted his frustrations on Facebook on Wednesday, sparking something of an uprising among friends and neighbors, who had documented trash and traffic in online photo albums. They started organizing and quickly set times and locations for at least five protest sites, including one in Meyers and another in Truckee.
Lease said it’s not about personal inconvenience or a “locals versus tourist” thing.
“It’s not like I’m saying, ‘Don’t come to Tahoe,’ ” he said. But rather “treat it with respect.”
That’s become more important than ever. The pandemic has exacerbated shortfalls of staff and funding in public services, meaning trash piles up. Enforcement of rules on beaches and trails is absent.
“If those entities can’t keep up with it, then that’s a damn good sign we shouldn’t be promoting more tourism right now,” Lease said.
At the Tahoe Chamber, CEO Steve Teshara agreed there is a small but visible percentage of tourists that isn’t behaving. At the same time, some locals are harassing visitors and that’s not OK, he said.
“It’s been a very challenging summer because certainly we understand people want to get out of the city where they’ve been locked down for months,” he said. “This is not a virusfree zone. This isn’t a place where anything goes.”
On Friday afternoon, hundreds of families lounged under tents and in the shade at Pope Beach in South Lake Tahoe, socially distanced but largely not wearing masks.
Many said they had changed their summer plans because of the coronavirus, eschewing trips that would have required air travel and visiting Lake Tahoe because it was closer to home. Many stayed in rental houses, rather than hotels, where they could cook for themselves and avoid crowds.
Most were blissfully unaware of any tensions about their presence in town.
Susan Mendez, a retired MRI Xray technician from Novato, said she and her husband almost didn’t make their annual visit to Tahoe this year, but ultimately decided they needed a change of scenery.
The couple is sticking to the rules, Mendez said. She brought her own bleach wipes and linens, and they are skipping their usual excursions to local restaurants and casinos. But she was alarmed by how many people she saw at the beach.
“We came here in a Tuesday and it felt more like a weekend to us,” she said. “I don’t know what it’s going to be like on the weekend. I’m a little fearful.”
At the Tahoe Paradise Golf Course, dozens of golfers arrived for their latemorning tee times. Pro shop manager Gavin Lynch, 30, said the local sentiment over the tourism influx “seems kind of 50/50.”
People are adjusting to all kinds of restrictions to welcome business again, he said, even as they can’t send their kids back to school.
“Here, we’re happy,” he said. “We’ve been busier than ever.”
Later Friday, several dozen people joined a protest at the Highway 50 roundabout outside Meyers, where many visitors enter the Tahoe region.
Deanna Heinrickson Burdick, 45, who owns a cleaning service in South Lake Tahoe, held a sign painted with “No school. No tourism.” She said she was frustrated that local officials were prioritizing outside visitors at the expense of residents.
Because of an increase in coronavirus cases in the region, schools won’t reopen for inperson classes for at least a few more months, Heinrickson Burdick said.
“Our economy relies heavily on tourism, but I’m here saying shut it down,” she said. “Why should I stay home? So you can have a vacation?”
Across the region, public officials and business owners say that, in March and April, they believed the virus could keep tourists away, devastating the local economy throughout the usually lucrative summer. Instead, most places are doing about as well as last year, with weekdays looking like weekends, which has been surprising, officials said.
“Tahoe is their backyard getaway,” said Carol Chaplin, president and chief executive of the Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority. “That’s great.” But she added an asterisk.
“We want people to have a good time while they’re here,” she said, “but we want them to pay the respect that’s due to the destination.”
In other words, if a trash can is full, take your garbage with you and find one that’s not. Wear a mask. Socially distance. Mind the traffic and parking laws.
Initially, in the spring, officials across the Lake Tahoe region did tell people not to come because of the virus.
Then, when businesses started to reopen, the messaging switched to “When you’re ready, we’re here for you,” said Jerry Bindel, general manager of Forest Suites and chairman of the board for the Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority. They never needed the third phase of advertising — trying to persuade wary people to come.
“When we said, ‘When you’re ready,’ they were already ready,” he said.
That didn’t exactly apply to everyone — Truckee being a prime example. City and regional officials there on July 23 asked visitors to refrain from visiting on weekends until after Aug. 17. But with weekend temperatures expected to hit 108 in Sacramento and 104 in Concord, many people were expected to ignore that request for mountain temps 20 to 30 degrees cooler.
In South Lake Tahoe, Bindel’s hotel is booked solid this weekend, albeit with a lower occupancy rate than normal. He had to cut the number of rooms to accommodate distancing and a smaller staff caused by a lack of international workers who couldn’t get a visa.
And overall, hotel occupancy across the region is actually down about 10% this year, he said. But you would hardly notice. With day visitors and a surging popularity of rental homes, there are a lot of people in town at all times.
“What we would like to see is a real educational campaign,” Bindel said. “We do love our visitors, but the message we’ve got to get out is: Be aware of your environment.”
Jennifer Webb, 40, a dump truck welder from Medford,
Ore. — who had rented a house — said Friday that she almost didn’t make the trip after seeing the torrent of angry comments on a South Lake Tahoe Facebook group.
Instead of ditching the trip, she planned the vacation so she wouldn’t have to interact with local residents and risk a fight. That included bringing all the food they’d need.
“We don’t even go to the grocery store,” she said.
The few locals she’s run into have been much nicer than those online, Webb said, adding that maybe people who are worried about the coronavirus should stay inside instead of chasing away visitors with money to spend in their community.
“We would love to go to the shops and then go get ice cream and explore the restaurants,” she said. “But I don’t want to do that and have somebody get irate.”