No poppy superbloom: Sightseers banned from California hillside this year

"Your warning is right now. We will have a zero-tolerance policy," the sheriff said.

To quash any recurrence of the “Disneyland-size crowds” it saw during the 2019 superbloom, a Southern California city has closed all access to its poppy-covered hillsides.

At a multi-agency press conference Tuesday, Lake Elsinore Mayor Natasha Johnson said this year’s bloom is not nearly as flashy as that of three years ago — but just in case anyone gets any ideas, all public access to Walker Canyon is now prohibited.

For at least several weeks, the trails and parking areas will be closed, the roads leading to the hillside will be closed, and there will be no park-and-ride shuttle for sightseers.

The throngs drawn to the 2019 bloom — “an international phenomenon,” Johnson called it — were blamed for injuries, rescue calls, traffic collisions, environmental damage and the death of a CHP officer who was fatally struck on a freeway.

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, speaking at the press conference, said his message to the public is: “Your warning is right now. We will have a zero-tolerance policy.”

When a reporter asked what the fine for violation would be, Bianco said he wouldn’t give a figure even if he could. “We don’t want anyone thinking, oh, that’s worth it, I’ll pay the fine and be good with it,” he said.

Any arrest, he added, would involve “an afternoon in jail.”

“If you want to enjoy the poppies, there will be plenty of photos from people who are posting them. How they got them I have no idea,” he said.

Johnson urged the weekend’s would-be day-trippers to “focus on the Super Bowl, not the superbloom that we are not having.”