UPDATES — I’ve updated this article with additional news; see bottom of article.

Every year, La Jollans drive up the hill to the top of Mount Soledad Park, pull into park’s entrance, drive into the parking lot, hop out, and litter.

Don’t worry, it’s a thing. It’s a La Jolla tradition, see, going on for years now. They pull in, hop out, and dump their unwanted, post-Christmas Christmas trees right smack-dab in front of a sign that says NO LITTERING OR DUMPING, $1000 FINE. It’s right there, plain as day, you can’t miss it.

You have admire the sheer brazenness of the act. I mean, the parking lot is big and long and they could toss their dead trees in all kinds of places. But no, they dump them right in front of the sign that says NO LITTERING OR DUMPING, $1000 FINE. Every year. And nobody does anything about it and nobody seems to care.

It’s like a regular thing, as clockwork as the swallows returning to San Juan Capistrano. The festivities start right around New Year’s Day, and the pile just grows, and grows, and grows . . .

… and grows and grows and grows some more. Many of these trees are big, as in multi-million-dollar vaulted-ceiling La Jolla mansion big. Some are still covered in tinsel.

Come the second week of January, a visitor to this annual convocation will observe that not only has the pile of trees grown rather substantial in size, not only height but also spreading out wide across the west end of the parking lot, but now there’s more than just trees. People start dumping bags of trash and other rubbish, because, after all, if you see a sign that says NO LITTERING OR DUMPING, $1000 FINE, and right smack-dab in front of that sign a huge pile of littering and dumping, what are you inclined to do? Litter and dump some more, of course! It’s a thing! Welcome to La Jolla!

It’s a $1,000 fine and towards the second week of January there are probably 100 dead Christmas trees and maybe 25–50 bags and bundles of other dumped items. So, you figure at least $100,000 in fines that the City is not collecting and the litterers and dumpers are not paying.

And then, today, January 13, at around 8am this morning, one sees this:

It’s a City of San Diego trash truck. And no, hadn’t just backed up and dumped even more stuff on the tree pile. And no, the two guys in their screaming bright day-glo orange outfits sittin’ in the cab of the truck just hangin’ out are not loading all the stuff into their truck. They’re just sittin’ there, hangin’ out.

I pulled my car up to them and had a chat.

“Hi guys, good morning,” I said.

They good morning’ed me back.

“All this stuff, it’s all illegally dumped here, right?”

“Yep,” one of ‘em said.

“So the City of San Diego has to come in and clean up after its La Jolla citizens, I guess?”

“Yep.”

I asked them if they had to do this huge job themselves, of loading all this crap into their trash truck, by hand.

Oh no, the one guy told me. “We’re waiting for the parolees to show up.”

Turns out the City of San Diego assigns parolees to come clean up after the La Jolla slobs who committed all these numerous acts of littering and dumping, each act a $1000 fine.

I waited around a little bit to see this van or bus of parolees arrive, but they never showed. The two guys in their screaming day-glo orange outfits sittin’ and hangin’ out in the cab of their truck backed right up against 100-odd littered and dumped La Jolla Christmas trees were still there as I pulled away, just sittin’ and hangin’ out waitin’ for the parolees.

That Christmas Spirit. A special time for joy and holiday cheer. And lots and lots of dumping and littering in La Jolla. As the Reddit community would say, “no fucks were given.”