DEL MAR — A Vista Superior Court judge has denied a motion by the city of San Diego and Surf Sports LLC to dismiss a lawsuit over the use of the former Del Mar polo fields, allowing a dispute about the property’s decades-old land restrictions to proceed.
Judge Victor Torres’ Sept. 9 decision did not address the merits of the lawsuit, leaving its central claims unresolved.
The Fairbanks Polo Club Homeowners Association filed a lawsuit in April 2023, alleging that the city has allowed Surf Sports, or Surf Cup Sports, to hold large soccer tournaments and other events at the fields beyond what a 1983 grant deed permits.
Developer Watts Industries/San Diego, now Ocean Industries, transferred the property to the city in 1983 under a grant deed that required it to remain open space and limited it to “passive non-commercial recreational uses.”
A later deed amendment limited certain events, including soccer tournaments, to 25 days a year. The homeowners contend that Surf Cup’s activities exceed those limits and bring excessive traffic and noise to the area. The city and Surf Cup dispute the allegations.
The city leased the fields to a polo club beginning in 1986. Surf Cup later used the property under a sublease before signing its own lease with the city in 2016. Surf Cup intervened in the Fairbanks Polo Club HOA’s lawsuit as a defendant in 2023, arguing that the outcome would directly impact its operations.
The case also raises questions about whether Ocean Industries lawfully transferred its rights under the deed to the homeowners association in 2017.
While the lawsuit was pending, the San Diego City Council voted in October 2025 to remove the deed’s land-use restrictions. The city also amended Surf Cup’s lease to limit large events to 40 days per year. The Sierra Club filed a separate lawsuit challenging the city’s decision to remove the restrictions.
In his 12-page decision, Torres identified three questions at the heart of the cases: what the deed permits and what remedies might apply to any violations; whether Ocean Industries’ assignment of rights was valid; and whether the city validly removed the deed restrictions.
Torres set an Oct. 30 hearing to consider consolidating the two cases.
“It appears that consolidation of the case and/or bifurcation may assist in clarifying each of the above steps. To the extent that the parties may not be inclined to present the issues in this manner, the Court will nonetheless continue to take the incoming issues raised one at a time, and, just like the instant motion, decline to exercise summary remedies in the interest of making sure that the entirety of this series of difficult issues is ultimately litigated on its merits.”
