Four blocks of Garnet Avenue will go car-free this Saturday as Pacific Beach hosts its third annual Retro Fun Fair & Car Show, turning the neighborhood's main commercial strip into a pedestrian promenade lined with more than 200 hot rods, cruisers, woodies and VW Bugs. The free event runs from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and stretches from Mission Boulevard to Dawes Street, including the alleyways in between. It's the only time all year that stretch of Garnet gets shut down to traffic entirely.
The show, first launched in 2023, is co-hosted by the Pacific Beach Town Council and produced with Steve “Charger Steve” Lordigyan, a regional car show promoter the council partners with every year, according to Times of San Diego. Lordigyan has run the weekly Cajon Classic Cruise in downtown El Cajon since 2006, a seasonal event that draws as many as 50,000 visitors between April and September, according to Maynards Garage. He earned his nickname from his personal collection of Hollywood screen vehicles, including a screen-used 1969 Dodge Charger from The Dukes of Hazzard that has been displayed at The Hollywood Museum, per a post shared in a Dukes of Hazzard filming location Facebook group.
Pacific Beach Town Council president Charlie Nieto, who owns a 1974 Buick Apollo, said the goal behind closing the avenue was to create something more than a static car display. Per the Times of San Diego report, Nieto said organizers wanted to turn Garnet Avenue into a promenade filled with unique classic cars. Beyond the vehicles themselves, the fair will include live music, a magician, other live performances, and cars performing tricks for the crowd.
A Police Lowrider Built for Community Trust
Among the more than 200 vehicles will be the San Diego Police Department's “The Guardian,” a custom lowrider cruiser commissioned in 2013 and designed for community outreach rather than regular patrol duty. The car is a modified 1998 Ford Crown Victoria fitted with hydraulic lift switches, with trunk artwork created by STAR/PAL Director Mayra Nunez depicting an officer alongside local children, according to Autoevolution. The vehicle functions as a promotional and symbolic tool meant to support positive relationships between police and southeast San Diego's lowrider community.
The Guardian's presence at a neighborhood street fair reflects a broader legal shift across California. Assembly Bill 436, introduced by San Diego Assemblymember David Alvarez and signed into law in October 2023, repealed state statutory authority that had let local municipalities ban cruising or restrict lowered vehicle heights, making lowriding legal statewide as of Jan. 1, 2024, according to Serviam Law. San Diego County has its own history with these restrictions: the National City Council voted in April 2023 to permanently repeal its 1992 anti-cruising ordinance after years of advocacy from groups including the United Lowrider Coalition, per KPBS.
Coupon Books Aim to Steer Foot Traffic to Garnet Businesses
For this year's event, the Pacific Beach Town Council introduced a new PB business coupon book program, printing thousands of booklets to hand out to attendees in hopes of driving pedestrian traffic into Garnet Avenue storefronts, per a sponsor package the town council published. The coupon books will also appear at the neighborhood's summer Concerts on the Green. It's a direct bid to translate the crowd drawn by classic cars into dollars spent at local shops and restaurants.
That strategy has precedent. During trial cruising events held in San Diego County in 2022, local South Bay business leaders reported sales revenue increases of 20% to 30% on days when organized car cruises took place, according to CBS News. Those regional sales bumps were cited by municipal leaders during broader debates over repealing local cruising bans. The car show is one piece of a larger slate of community programming the town council runs throughout the year, including the PAESAN first-responder appreciation barbecue, Concerts on the Green at Kate Sessions Park, and an annual graffiti cleanup event.
A Rare Break From Ongoing Traffic Safety Concerns
The temporary closure comes amid heightened scrutiny of traffic safety along Garnet Avenue. A nine-car pileup near Mission Bay Drive in July resulted in one fatality, and a separate pedestrian hit-and-run collision occurred on the same corridor that same month, as Hoodline previously reported. Pacific Beach residents have pushed San Diego officials for traffic-calming measures along the corridor in the aftermath of those incidents.
For one Saturday morning, at least, Garnet Avenue will trade traffic concerns for a slow-rolling display of automotive nostalgia, free and open to anyone willing to walk the four closed blocks between Mission and Dawes.
