Expect more alcohol ads on San Diego trolley cars and bus shelters

By David Garrick | San Diego Union-Tribune (TNS)

SAN DIEGO — Controversial alcohol ads will continue to show up on San Diego trolley cars and bus shelters, after a divided Metropolitan Transit System board voted 9-4 to remove a ban on such ads permanently.

The move, an attempt to boost revenue from sources other than fares and government subsidies, comes as MTS faces $100 million deficits in future years and considers trying for a sales tax hike for the November 2026 ballot.

The permanent removal of the longtime ban, which the board voted on June 26, comes after a two-year pilot project prompted no complaints but also generated weaker-than-expected revenue.

Some board members expressed concerns that the ads could have a negative impact on low-income neighborhoods along the trolley, but MTS officials said there was no evidence of that during the pilot.

Sean Elo-Rivera, a San Diego City Council member who serves on the MTS board, praised transit system officials for honoring repeated requests from the board in recent years to diversify the transit system’s revenue streams.

But Mark Fleming, who represents the Coronado City Council on the board, said the program seemed like a lot of effort for relatively little return.

The program generated only about $67,000 in revenue during the pilot, far short of the $200,000 estimate given when the board approved the pilot in June 2023.

MTS officials said they expect revenue to rise sharply in the future. They said the alcohol advertising market had been slow to embrace a new opportunity.

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“This is a new space for a lot of alcohol companies,” said Mark Olson, director of marketing and communications for MTS. “They weren’t ready to kind of dive in with new dollars.”

Olson said he expects more revenue as advertisers become steadily more familiar. “I see the revenue we’ve collected as more of a floor than a ceiling,” he said.

But he conceded that alcohol ads are unlikely to be as lucrative as in years past, when people may have been drinking more.

Patricia Dillard, a La Mesa City Council member who serves on the MTS board, said she is optimistic revenue will rise in the near future.

On low-income neighborhoods, Olson said that only five of the 60 alcohol ads during the pilot were in such areas. He also stressed that they weren’t clustered in any particular area.

The pilot required MTS to study that issue based on concerns that low-income areas in San Diego generally have more liquor stores and may have more residents with alcohol problems.

Henry Foster, a San Diego City Council member who also serves on the MTS board, said he’d like MTS to study the issue more thoroughly, contending that simply plotting where the ads are located is not enough.

“I don’t know if that is necessarily the proper measuring tool,” said Foster, whose districts includes some of San Diego’s lowest-income neighborhoods.

Foster was one of the four votes against permanently removing the ban on alcohol ads. He was joined by Fleming, County Supervisor Monica Montgomery Steppe and Chula Vista Mayor John McCann.

Fleming said he worried the policy could be a slippery slope.

“I have some serious reservations over this policy,” he said. “What’s to keep this from expanding to dispensaries?”

Sharon Cooney, MTS chief executive, said the federal ban on cannabis would prevent that, because MTS receives significant federal funding.

Olson said alcohol advertisers have focused so far on locations downtown, near the beach and in the mid-city area — not low-income areas.

The pilot included a handful of deals negotiated for MTS by Clear Channel Communications. Two of the deals were for trolley wraps — one by Breckenridge Distillery and one by Dios Azul Tequila, which is the official tequila of the San Diego FC soccer team.

Companies advertising on bus shelters have included Smart & Final, which has featured photos of its wine aisle, as well as Proximo Spirits and Cutwater Spirits. Advertisers are required to focus on responsible messages, such as “don’t drink and drive — take the trolley.”

MTS also made deals with the La Mesa Oktoberfest celebration and the La Jolla Wine and Food Festival.

Because about 90% of MTS bus shelters are within the city of San Diego, the agency made a deal with the city that exempts it from some city ad policies.

In return, the city gets 45% of MTS alcohol ad revenue within the city. So MTS only got to keep about $37,000 of the $67,000 generated during the pilot.

No ads have appeared in Poway or Coronado, because those two cities have no MTS bus shelters and are not on a trolley line.

©2025 The San Diego Union-Tribune

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