Is it time for a dog park in the City of Santa Ana?

Wouldn’t the Santa Ana Lawn Bowling Center make a nice Dog Park?

Did you know that the City of Santa Ana has no dog parks?  I called today and spoke with a lady at the City of Santa Ana’s dog license department.  She was very helpful! 

She said that we have 11,835 dogs currently licensed in our city.  And she figures there might be even more dogs that are currently unlicensed.  While I have questioned the cost of our licenses in the past, they do accomplish a couple of positive goals, in that they help to assure that dogs are properly vaccinated – and that they are fixed.

The lady at the dog license department also told me that the only dog park in the area is in Costa Mesa – and they don’t like it when out of town residents bring their dogs to their park, as it is hard to corroborate that the dogs are fixed and vaccinated.

I have an idea for a dog park, in Santa Ana, at NO COST to our city!  The Lawn Bowling center, at Santiago Park, is only used four times a week.  Gerardo Mouet, the Santa Ana Parks and Recreation Director, verified this today in an email I received.  “The Lawn Bowlers practice on the bowling area on Tuesdays and Thursdays and play on the weekends.”

My proposal would be to get rid of the lawn bowling altogether as it is an anachronistic sport that very few people in Santa Ana are involved in.  The people who come here to do lawn bowling are, for the most part, from out of town!

This area, as you can see in the pictures embedded in this post, is fenced in and it has benches to relax on.  The lawn is also well maintained.  It would be a perfect dog park!  And the City would hardly have to spend any additional money to do this.

As an alternative, if our City Council for some reason wants to keep the lawn bowling activities, we can use the area as a dog park when the lawn bowling is not going on.

If we had a dog park in our city, we could advertise the services our city provides with regard to dog licenses, vaccinations, etc., right there at the dog park!

What do you think? 

Click here to contact Santa Ana Parks and Recreation Director Gerardo Mouet.  Click here to contact the Santa Ana City Council.  Click here to contact Councilman Carlos Bustamante, who represents the Santiago Park area.  You can contact City Manager Dave Ream’s assistant, Mark Lawrence, at MLawrence@santa-ana.org. 

Click here for a list of dog parks in Orange County.

Art Pedroza Editor
Our Editor, Art Pedroza, worked at the O.C. Register and the OC Weekly and studied journalism at CSUF and UCI. He has lived in Santa Ana for over 30 years and has served on several city and county commissions. When he is not writing or editing Pedroza specializes in risk control and occupational safety. He also teaches part time at Cerritos College and CSUF. Pedroza has an MBA from Keller University.
Art Pedroza

Our Editor, Art Pedroza, worked at the O.C. Register and the OC Weekly and studied journalism at CSUF and UCI. He has lived in Santa Ana for over 30 years and has served on several city and county commissions. When he is not writing or editing Pedroza specializes in risk control and occupational safety. He also teaches part time at Cerritos College and CSUF. Pedroza has an MBA from Keller University.

View Comments

  • Instead of a dog park, they should open it up for people in general. Make French Park a dog park!

  • Gustavo,

    No doubt! It is odd seeing it closed off to the public and essentially unused.

    But why not open a second dog park at French Park? We are a big city! We deserve more than one dog park!

  • Leave the Lawn Bowling Center alone. Try it, you may like it and earn respect for an ancient sport beloved by others. FYI bowling greens, like golf courses, have carefully managed surfaces that need to be protected from damage, thus the fences. Everyone is encouraged to try lawn bowling!

  • M Chan,

    Again, does anyone in Santa Ana play this sport? If not, shouldn't we use the space in a way that will benefit more of our residents and taxpayers?

    There are a lot of ancient sports that we have dumped over the years. In fact some of them, such as dog fighting, are illegal now.

    Time to say adios to lawn bowling in Santa Ana!

  • Admin,
    I hope you are not implying that lawn bowling will be made illegal, comparing it to brutal "sport" of dog fighting?!! In the United States, lawn bowling is a sport mainly enjoyed by senior citizens. You can't take away their recreation areas just because there are more dogs than lawn bowling seniors in the city! And a lawn bowling green is a well-manicured surface, and would be ruined by sharing time with dogs and their owners. If Santa Ana needs a dog park, please look elsewhere.
    (And as M Chan mentioned, everyone is invited to come out and try lawn bowling!)

  • I love the idea of a dog park. People in Santa Ana have to go all the way to Orange Or Costa Mesa. Leave the bowling center alone. . . Too much history. The perfect place is above the public works building, deeper intothe park, between the archery area and the two big slides. It is already gated off and nobody uses it. It used to be used as a police dog training center years ago. Maybe this will make me feel good about paying my dog license - feeling like I get something in return instead of having it go into a deep dark whole of a budget in the city.

  • The most stupid idea I have ever heard of. When out of town people visit your city to lawn bowl, we bring MONEY. Do you want us to visit your city to look at dog poop?

  • Roland,

    Why should the people of Santa Ana pay to entertain folks who don't live in town?

    We don't have a dog park in town, but you lawn bowlers have other options:

    Lawn Bowling - Corona Del Mar

    Newport Harbor Lawn Bowling Club
    1550 Crown Dr N, Corona Del Mar, CA 92625 Map
    949 644-6138

    Top of Page

    Lawn Bowling - Irvine

    The Groves Lawn Bowling Club
    5200 Irvine Blvd, Irvine, CA 92620 Map
    714 832-8067

    Top of Page

    Lawn Bowling - Laguna Beach

    Laguna Beach Lawn Bowling Club
    455 Cliff Dr, Laguna Beach, CA 92651 Map
    949 448-3879

    Top of Page

    Lawn Bowling - Mission Viejo

    Casta Del Sol Lawn Bowling Club
    24351 Via Albeniz, Mission Viejo, CA 92692 Map
    949 380-0264

  • Admin;

    For you who are ill informed, the lawn bowling club members pay for the city to maintain the greens. How many crap leaving dog owners would pay for the use? That jewel of the City of Santa Ana would be a reeking eysore in three months or less of dog use.

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