Port of LA to evict long-running Cabrillo Beach Scout camp for Olympic sailing facility

A Scout camp and training facility that has operated for decades at Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro is being evicted at the end of this month, according to Greater Los Angeles Scouting, the umbrella organization for local troops and Cub Scout packs.

The Port of Los Angeles is terminating Scouting’s lease at the beachfront complex so that the site can be repurposed as a training center for national and international sailing teams in the 2028 Olympics, the Port said.

Tim Lebetsamer, who leads a Cub Scout pack in San Pedro, learned of the news on Wednesday night via email. “It came out of the blue,” he said.

For nearly 80 years, Greater Los Angeles Scouting has provided training and programming to hundreds of thousands of youth on Cabrillo Beach, initially operating out of tents and military huts and trailers, the organization said.

The backstory

In 1982, the Scouts entered into a 30-year lease with the Port to construct and manage a youth camp facility, said Robert Scoular, a member of the board of directors and vice president of Greater LA Scouting. Scoular said the Scouts raised more than $3.6 million, including from filmmaker Steven Spielberg, to construct the Cabrillo Beach Youth Center, which spans over 12 acres and includes waterfront access, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, campgrounds, an archery range, a crafts center, an amphitheater and a kitchen.

Once the lease expired, the Scouts remained on a month-to-month agreement for more than a decade, Phillip Sanfield, a spokesperson for the Port, said. The terms of the lease said that if occupancy ended, the Scouts forfeited ownership to the Port, Scoular said.

Why it matters

Losing access to that “leaves a hole,” Lebetsamer said. He oversees a pack of about 30 boys, from kindergarten to fifth grade, and they use the facilities at the Cabrillo Beach Youth Center at least monthly for everything from award ceremonies to potlucks to camping. “It’s in our backyard,” he said. Many more regularly come from across the region — 17,000 youth in just the last year, according to Greater LA Scouting.

Lebetsamer met with his Cub Scouts on Wednesday — a standing den meeting — and hadn’t planned to discuss the news that they might not be able to use the facility. But “that’s all they want to talk about,” he said of his Scouts.

The Port is required to establish an operational training facility as part of its venue responsibilities in hosting the Olympic Games, as six sailing events will be staged in the Port’s Outer Harbor, Sanfield said. The Port will invest $5 million through the Public Access Investment Plan for repairs and improvements “that will revitalize this important waterfront asset” in preparation, Sanfield said.

Where things stand

A newly formed nonprofit, Pathway to Podium LLC, with involvement from the Los Angeles and Cabrillo Beach Yacht Clubs, will operate the training facility under a new lease that will continue until sometime after the 2028 Olympics, according to the email sent by Greater LA Scouting.

During this interim Olympic training period, Sanfield said the Port is committed to ensuring community groups continue to have access to the waterfront and facility on Cabrillo Beach.

Indeed, more than half the youth who use the facility are non-Scouts, including 4-H members, Girl Scouts and students from Mary Star of the Sea High School, Scoular said. He said he hopes that can continue during the interim period and indicated discussions with the Port are ongoing.

After the Olympics are over, “we hope to be able to reestablish at that site and move forward using the building that we paid for,” he said. The Port said it will issue a request for proposals to identify a long-term operator for the site after the Games.

“This is a beautiful, prime, picturesque beachfront and I think it is important that as many groups as possible can access and enjoy it,” Supervisor Janice Hahn said in a statement. A spokesperson for Hahn’s office said the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors was not involved in this decision to end Scouting’s lease.

Benjie Spolarich, a lifeguard and camp staff member at Cabrillo Beach, said he felt “overlooked” and “baffled” by this development: If the space is taken over by the Port, he is out of a job. He said he is skeptical Scouts and the community will be able to share the space during the Olympic training period because, during past sailing events, the Port “took over the whole camp, and we only had a small portion left,” he said.

Lebetsamer had planned to take his Cub Scout pack to the Pinewood Derby, where Scouts build and race unpowered miniature cars in “one of the biggest events in Cub Scouting for the year,” he said. The derby was scheduled for early 2026; now Lebetsamer is worried it won’t take place at all.

“My program is going to continue,” he said. “But Cabrillo has been a big part of us making it happen.”