Music Silenced at Lake Murray’s Fourth of July, but Fireworks Are Tonight

When Marco Gonzalez and his Coastal Environmental Rights Foundation sued to stop Fourth of July fireworks at La Jolla Cove, the collateral damage was Lake Murray’s annual music festival, says the event’s organizer.

For only the second time since the late 1990s, Lake Murray will have no bands performing on its shores Independence Day, says John Pilch, part of the three-man committee involved.

“You can’t hold an event that costs $50,000 if you only have $20,000,” Pilch said Thursday night—only hours after getting a San Diego permit giving a fireworks company access to the set-up point at Lake Murray, a drinking-water reservoir on La Mesa’s western boundary.

“We have the money needed to put on the fireworks—but not the music portion” of the 14-year-old holiday celebration. Four bands would have performed in turn between noon and a little after 9 p.m. (See photos from 2010.)

In 2004, the local event was canceled for lack of money, and the Boney family—of the former Whole Foods Market chain—pledged $10,000 a year starting in 2005. But with public donations of no more than $7,000, Pilch’s group had no choice but to cut something this year, he said.

“More people appear to be interested in having fireworks than the music festival,” Pilch said. Still, he says he’s received complaints about the music being silenced.

Uncertainty over the fate of the La Jolla fireworks—authorized by the city of San Diego but challenged in court—led to donors drying up, with vendors being unavailable to say they could attend. 

“We don’t have seals and sea lions, but we have ducks; we have birds,” Pilch said, referring to the wildlife that Encinitas attorney Gonzalez seeks to protect with a challenge to fireworks under state environmental laws.

Pilch said that as late as Thursday he was holding his breath over the possibility that a temporary restraining order might halt the Lake Murray fireworks.

But the show will go on.

Next year’s event remains in doubt, however—along with potentially thousands of other fireworks displays in the region. 

Superior Court Judge Linda Quinn in late May ordered the city of San Diego to obey state environmental laws when issuing permits for fireworks shows and other special events, but a week later she stayed enforcement of her ruling until Aug. 31.

On Tuesday, the regional Water Quality Control Board sent notice that Pilch and his partners—Jay Wilson and Don Brennan—could hold the fireworks display.

Pilch—whose Lake Murray Kiwanis Club is behind the recurring American flag display on Lake Murray Boulevard—stressed that his group isn’t against environmentalism.

“We don’t want to harm the environment,” he said. “[But] nobody is telling us what we’re doing wrong or how to resolve it.”

He says water-quality tests of Lake Murray days after last year’s fireworks show found “no problem” with the drinking water source.

“All we’re trying to do is hold a community event that people will enjoy,” said Pilch, a San Carlos resident who says about a tenth of the crowd for the fireworks show—seen from Baltimore Drive and other streets—are La Mesa residents.

In fact, Pilch said the city of La Mesa donated $1,000 to the show in 2006, but nothing ever since.

“I keep telling them, when I go before the City Council, that at least 10 percent of the people who view the fireworks are from La Mesa,” he said. He recalls asking La Mesa to allocate 10 percent of the event’s budget, or $5,000—which goes toward insurance, traffic control, portable restrooms and other things besides fireworks.

But Pilch notes that none of the committee members gets paid—“we’re just three volunteers in the community….We have a lot of fun.”

This year’s 16-minute show, with “in excess of 475 shells,” is set to start at 9:15 p.m. Monday. It’s put on by Pyro Spectaculars of Rialto, which has done the Lake Murray show since the late 1990s.

He says the fireworks show grew out of a Labor Day weekend music festival at Lake Murray in the 1990s, and “community leaders said: Why not do Fourth of July?”

Crowds have swelled from 1,000 to 4,000 since then, he said. And music from several genres have entertained them during the day—Jazz, rock, big bands, Latin jazz and cover bands for popular music.

“People don’t have to go to downtown [San Diego], El Cajon or Santee,” Pilch said. “That’s the basic premise”—with neighbors being able to celebrate the holiday nearby.

“We were working toward a larger [fireworks] show” this year, but they’ll keep the original show, he said.

He and his colleagues will be out and about preparing the park for visitors, as usual.

But while the lack of a music festival is a major disappointment, Pilch said it means less work for his committee—and perhaps time to savor the sky show.

“For the three of us, we haven’t had a chance to fully enjoy it,” he said. “This year we may.”

See related Q&A with Marco Gonzalez.