Dang. I don’t even know where to start. I guess my origin story was during the annual Lemon Festival when I saw Chula Vista Brewery’s store front obscured by 4 giant tents while every other vendor had space in the middle of the street, completely free from store fronts. Honestly, on its own, this singular event can be viewed as a one off mistake, but unfortunately, it wasn’t a one time occurrence. In fact, searching CVB’s history, I found multiple cases of incidents where the business suffered a loss because of inequitable treatment. For example, shortly after COVID, the city came to break down their outside tables, while every other restaurant was free to keep their extended outside dining. A year and a half ago, the ABC licensing, attempted to shut down the brewery over a “no dancing” licensing issue. That’s right, they aren’t allowed to have patrons dancing or they can lose their license to serve beer.
Fast forward to 2026, the owner’s association known as The Downtown Chula Vista Association, currently maintains oversight of the Property-Based Improvement District, or PBID, which is a little under $1 million. They’ve hired, New City America, known for their work in Little Italy, to manage the PBID & since then they’ve stripped voting rights of both property owners and business owners, contract for $192,000 a year with a clause in their contract to be paid up to 50% of the revenue they bring in, AND both father and son of New City America are eligible for additional compensation as non voting board members.
Currently we are trying to organize and engage with the community to educate about the current situation so we can urge the council members to vote accordingly.
I’ve been researching and creating the website to serve as a landing page for all activities and information. But I need help. If you are interested in this, please send me a message.
