Bikers get OK to stay at City Beach
SANDPOINT — More than 400 bikers will stay overnight at City Beach despite a ban on camping there.
Their bikes are the quiet kind. The group’s intent is to provide an economic shot to the communities where they stay.
Members of the bicycle group Ride Idaho met with council members last week seeking permission to use the park for one night under the week on the group’s four-day loop from Hayden to Troy, Mont. and back to the lake cities via Thompson Pass.
The early August tour passes through Sandpoint, where members hoped to stay close to the downtown in an effort to spend dollars at local businesses.
“That is kind of our mission,” group president and founder of Ride Idaho, Earl Grief, said. “We come and provide economic impact to communities where we overnight, and where we can.”
Originally, the group was asked to stay at the Bonner County Fairgrounds, but group members and the local business community pushed to use City Beach because it was nearer downtown.
“Economic impact to our downtown is well needed,” Kathleen Hyde of the Downtown Sandpoint Business Association said.
Hyde, who initiated the venue change for the group’s overnight stay, said most of the bicyclists are baby boomers, and professionals who make upward of $100,000 annually.
“They are a perfect target to return for tourism,” she said.
Kim Woodruff, Sandpoint’s Parks and Recreation director, was not so sure.
Despite the upside, Woodruff said, allowing anyone to stay overnight at City Beach would send a message that city ordinances are for sale, and would prompt others to seek overnight beach camping.
If one group is allowed to camp, he said, “we have to be fair to everyone.”
That includes groups who do not benefit the community, he said.
“It’s my job to be paranoid,” Woodruff said. “I would rather air on the side of conservative.”
Although a city ordinance prohibits camping in city parks, the majority of the council voted to amend the code. The amended version will be considered at the June 16 council meeting.