What Is Pacifica Without Its Pier?

I was on vacation when I heard the news that Pacifica Pier had cracked. It wasn’t the first time, but this felt different. It was one long vertical crack at the entrance of the pier, near Chit Chat Cafe, a coffee shop that also sold bait — the unofficial welcome sign to the nearly quarter mile-long pier that juts into the Pacific Ocean.

When this latest structural damage occurred in early June, city officials declared a state of emergency, and immediately demolished the cafe. The owners didn’t even have time to retrieve their belongings, but demolition crew members brought out a few mementos as onlookers cheered. Shortly after the demo, people began sharing images on social media of the crack getting progressively worse, in real time. Some stated, “RIP Pacifica Pier.” 

Pacifica Pier is both a majestic and ugly structure. It first opened in 1973 as a way to support the runoff pipes funneling treated wastewater into the ocean. Above ground, the pier became a local Bay Area icon. It was the place for anglers, nature photographers, and visitors to stand above the coast’s wildest waves. Every year, from about November through June, it was the only place to catch Dungeness crabs without having to go on a kayak or boat and it didn’t require a fishing license.

A place for many

I first started going to the pier around the time I started surfing, circa 2018. Linda Mar, just three miles south, is where a lot of beginners start. For better or worse, it is where I spent a lot of my early surfing days. I would sometimes stop by the pier to take sunset photos, check out what the fishers were catching, and try to spot a great white shark (reports of sightings from the pier were a regular occurrence). 

It was also a way to be closer to marine wildlife. There were plenty of birds and seals that tried to steal anglers’ bait. Whales were commonly seen from the pier. 

If there was a Venn diagram of pier users, it would likely be anglers, photographers, and sunset-watchers. I spoke with Chris Campo, a Pacifica resident, whale watcher, and wildlife photographer who told me it was “mind blowing” to witness whales going underneath the pier’s concrete pilings in recent years.

Marylinda Swanson, who replied to my questions on the Pacifica Pier Fishing and Crabbing Facebook, said that she used the pier to “walk my problems out.”

The end of the pier was the most competitive fishing spot because it was deeper in the ocean where there were purportedly bigger fish and crab to catch. Tons of fishing rods were lined up next to each other, and if your line got caught with another’s, someone likely would get mad. 

But the shallower side of the pier was less competitive, and people there willingly helped new anglers. Some freely gave away lures and homemade crab traps. Others shared their dim sum boxes of pastries and bait (and would even bait the hook for you if you didn’t want to get your hands dirty). The generosity and camaraderie was endless, almost like the pier itself.

An uncertain future

Despite being a beloved destination, the pier wasn’t perfect. Clearly, it had structural issues. The city had stated — prior to the crack — that it would take $20 million to shore up the pier. Now that it has further disintegrated, it’s unclear how much it will cost to repair it, or build a new one. Local leaders are calling for the reinstatement of federal funding that was revoked under the Trump administration. Currently, the area around the pier is fenced off. 

The pier is a part of the larger coastal problem of rising sea levels. Californians are trying to stave off the inevitable by building more seawalls. But innovative solutions are underway. A local group of surfers and engineers proposed this novel idea: making an artificial reef to soften the waves before they reach the shores and homes along Beach Boulevard in Pacifica.

Less than 200 years ago, the area where Sharp Park and the pier now sit was coastal wetland. It was a mile and a half from the ancestral villages of the Aramai people from the Ramaytush Tribe, at Calera Creek. 

Jonathan Cordero, chair of the Ramaytush Tribe and the executive director of the Association of Ramaytush Ohlone told me that the area would’ve been full of resources. “There would have been fish and shellfish and reeds” that the Aramai people gathered. He added that as a historically-displaced tribe, not many descendants live on the Peninsula. And, due to “alteration to the natural world, so much development … the natural resources are not always healthy and safe to use” in current-day Pacifica.

In Rosanna Xia’s book California Against the Sea, the LA Times writer dedicates many pages to the city of Pacifica. In it, she reflects on California’s coastal history, “Generations of people, walled off from the water, can no longer remember a time when we moved in harmony with the tide. The battle, for now, might feel like it could still be won, but how far are we willing to take this war?”

Facing the loss

For those who frequented the pier over the past few years, the loss is immense. The pier was a third space and community. There were people who were there daily, particularly elders. It had a big presence online, too: the Pacifica Whale Spotting Facebook group has 38,000 members and the Pacifica Pier Fishing and Crabbing Facebook group has 14,000. 

Where are they all going now? Based on discussions online and a survey I made that more than a dozen people filled out, many don’t know. Some anglers say they are fishing right next to the pier on the beaches. Others have gone to other places, such as Ocean Beach, or the Pinole or Brisbane piers, but it isn’t the same. Fishing in a brackish tidal environment or shallow Bay water is completely different from the Pacific Ocean. Some people will go to Torpedo Wharf where one can still catch red and rock crabs, but  it’s illegal to fish for Dungeness there.

Those who are disabled or elderly don’t really have any options that match Pacifica. Even able-bodied people may struggle at the beaches: a local angler had to fight for her life from being swept away into the ocean when she went fishing at Sharp Park beach, just next to the pier. She says she went there after the pier was closed.  

Chit Chat Cafe is demolished, but their second location on Manor Drive, just across from Manor Beach, is still open.The GoFundMe for losing the Pacifica Pier location is still active.

Pacifica continues to proclaim the pier as a local emergency, but didn’t respond to requests for comment by deadline. In a July 13 city council meeting staff report, it was determined that the pier “will remain closed until it can be determined the facility is safe for public use.” 

As the community of anglers at the pier dissipates, maybe new communities will form. There is a new Facebook group, called Save Pacifica Pier.

Campo, the whale photographer, says that, “as a platform for photography of marine mammals, it’s really hard to beat it.” Photographers would gather together on the pier and point out humpbacks, grey whales, and dolphins. Members of the whale watching group that he helps organize still go to Pacifica to look for whales, but now from the sidewalk or beach. They still use the pier as a measuring tool: “We use the term ‘pier length’ to say how far the whales are.” 

In comments from the survey, people continue to share what the pier meant to them. “I didn’t just make friends. I made family at that pier,” someone wrote. Another said, “This pier has been therapy for me from surviving stage four cancer. It was a place where we go to find peace and enjoy life.”

Liana Guerrero-Lowe, who got married on the pier last year, pointed out that “It brought people together that may have never met otherwise. There are so many people on the pier I have come to consider family. Now it feels like the matriarch of the family has passed on and the family is scattered. It’s a really hard loss.”