Letters to the Editor: Aug. 14, 2009

Ways to support Torrey Pines park

A timely Del Mar Times editorial (Aug. 7) urged local support for Torrey Pines State Beach and Natural Reserve, a regional treasure now threatened by the state budget emergency.

One way locals can support the park is by purchasing an annual pass for $125. The pass allows 12 months of auto access to the upper parts of the park and the trailheads - a great place to take visitors to our region.

The same pass allows you to park free in the beach lot, a great benefit when you want to park by the ocean, but all the places on the strand are taken.

The same pass allows you free day use and parking at most of the 279 state parks and beaches - 16 in San Diego County including Cardiff State Beach, adjacent to Restaurant Row.

Best of all, the annual pass is a great way to support our local park in this time of reduced financial support from the state.

Unfortunately, the full amount does not go to the Torrey Pines Park, but the more passes sold at Torrey Pines, the more money comes back to our local park from Sacramento.

Of course, you also can support the park directly with a contribution to the Torrey Pines Association or the Torrey Pines Docent Society. Beach and bluff-top venues are available for weddings, memorial services and the like.

Let’s all do what we can to support Torrey Pines park.

Visit the park soon.

Regarding your July 30 page 1 story on the further prohibitions of smoking proposed by the Del Mar City Council in all city-licensed businesses, outdoor areas of all restaurants and bars, on all sidewalks, in taxicabs and within apartment buildings:

Who said Stalin is dead? He is alive in our land of the free and must be smiling with dictatorial approval, as broadly as Jefferson and Adams must be frowning with shock and disdain. What happened in Russia can never happen here? It IS happening here, in dramatically increasing proof of the truism that “As government expands, liberty contracts.”

How can any American forget “Give me liberty or give me death!” and the millions who chose the latter to assure that this remains the land of the free. But the majority is forgetting and lunging forward by leaps and bounds, primarily because it is the majority and in ways that are making a mockery of that most precious of all human rights. Liberty.

I am a nonsmoker who submits that it is more important to protect the legal rights of the minority than those of the majority.