SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – Some neighbors of the Loma Portal area of Point Loma say the area welcomes many for Halloween.
“There's hundreds and hundreds or thousands of kids running around our neighborhood,” Pete Mechalas, a Loma Portal neighbor, said.
However, there might be something scarier than the costumes.
“We get here pretty early because once it starts getting dark, we’re really concerned about people not respecting the traffic,” a woman named Marcia, who was trick-or-treating with her family, said.
“We take the kids out early because the streetlights in this neighborhood haven't worked for the last decade or so,” Peter Shearer, a Loma Portal neighbor, said.
“The issue is the lights,” Mechalas said.
Mechalas lives in the Loma Portal neighborhood. ABC 10News spoke with him in 2023 about his concerns with the streetlights in his area of Loma Portal, pedestrian safety during Halloween and the City’s effort to address them.
Since then, Mechalas said the City has fixed the lights in his neighborhood, not too long after speaking with ABC 10News.
But there was a new concern this year’s Halloween night: the lights right down his street, near the main road, and kids trick-or-treating.
"It's the rest of the neighborhood is still out. Chatsworth (Boulevard) is the main street coming up to Point Loma in our neighborhood and it's pitch black,” Mechalas said.
Others who live nearby also have issues with the street lights in parts of this Loma Portal area.
"It's unfortunate they are historic streetlights, such a great neighborhood, especially around Halloween, but it does get very dangerous with the cars,” Shearer said.
Another concern Mechalas had on Halloween night was this crosswalk on Chatsworth he said the City built 6 months or so ago.
“It’s still not working, and it's taped off, so you can't even access the little island in the middle, which I think makes it even more dangerous, and the kids still have to run across the street,” Mechalas said.
“I’m glad that the City is doing that because it is a dangerous little intersection there. But it would’ve been great to have it for tonight,” Shearer said.
ABC 10News reached out to the City about these latest concerns about the lights on Chatsworth Boulevard and the crosswalk. We haven’t heard back from them at the time this story aired.
“I'm just worried that it's very unsafe and I don't know what the city's plans are, and a lot of the parents around here are wondering the same thing,” Mechalas said.
