New sheriff’s substation coming to former Bonny Doon Vineyard space in Davenport

A new sheriff’s substation in Davenport will serve as a hub for public safety and community services along Santa Cruz County’s North Coast, an increasingly popular destination for tourism and outdoor recreation.

The substation, which will also house county parks staff, should be operational roughly a month after Santa Cruz County Sheriff Chris Clark gets the keys on Sept. 1, he said.

The county will renovate the building, located at 450 Highway 1, across the parking lot from the Davenport Roadhouse, which was previously occupied by the Bonny Doon Vineyard tasting room.

Clark said his top safety concern in the North Coast area is car break-ins, primarily from when out-of-towners leave suitcases or purses in their cars while visiting beaches, parks or, now, Cotoni-Coast Dairies National Monument, which opened last weekend just a mile north of the new substation’s location. Another concern at Cotoni-Coast Dairies is people getting lost on unfamiliar trails, something that happens from time to time around the county, he said.

He also cited the extension of the Coastal Rail Trail to Davenport as another reason for the substation. The Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission expects to complete construction of the trail to Davenport by March 2026.

Clark said having a more visible sheriff presence in Davenport can help mitigate the seasonal car break-ins and deter other crime in public spaces. 

“It’s just another step in the direction of making a commitment to enhancing public safety across the county,” Clark said.

The deputy stationed in Boulder Creek full time will now split his time between the two stations, and Clark said he hopes to assign a full-time deputy to the North Coast service center within six months of its opening.

A couple of department volunteers with access to patrol cars will man the station for the majority of the time once it opens. Because the volunteers are being given patrol cars, Clark said the community should feel the station’s presence quickly, with the volunteers conducting more patrols up and down Highway 1 than before. Volunteers can’t arrest people, though.

More people than ever have been visiting the beaches and open space on the North Coast since the pandemic and after a flurry of social media posts brought public attention to remote beaches such as Shark Fin Cove, said Colin Hannon, a board member for the Davenport North Coast Association, a community group for local residents. Hannon, like officials, expects even more visitors to come with the opening of Cotoni-Coast Dairies and the impending rail trail. And with more visitors comes more public safety hazards.

“We’ve been asking for more law enforcement presence for years on the North Coast,” Hannon said.

Hannon said residents of the North Coast are less concerned about crime and more concerned about accidents from reckless drivers on Highway 1 and visitors falling off cliffs or getting swept under by waves. He said he hopes visitors and drivers who see a sheriff’s car parked in Davenport will be more conscious about their decisions.

Hannon said he is “really happy” with the sheriff’s decision to put more law enforcement presence toward the North Coast.

District 3 Supervisor Justin Cummings played a large role in bringing the substation into reality, coordinating with the Davenport community group and advocating with the county on their behalf.

Cummings said that while the community’s desire for increased law enforcement was well known for many years — Clark said the idea for the substation in Davenport has floated around during his 20 years with the department — the efforts to turn the substation into reality didn’t pick up speed until Clark took office last December and the board of supervisors approved extra funding in the sheriff’s budget. 

The sheriff’s department, parks department and any future agency that moves into the space in the future will split the costs of operation, Clark said. He said it will operate as a “hub for government resources that have some sort of footprint on the North Coast.” To accommodate that, the building will be less of a sheriff’s substation and more of a community service station, Cummings said. 

“It’s not going to be your run-of-the-mill police station,” Cummings said. “We have some new ideas about how we want to build the space out and make it more community-facing.”

Cummings said he talked with the Bureau of Land Management, which manages Cotoni-Coast Dairies, about potentially allocating space for an officer when representatives of the federal agency visit the monument.

The county also intends to leave space for community gatherings and places for people to get information about the North Coast region. Cummings said his biggest hope is to give people a place to go when they have concerns that the county government and sheriff’s department can address so issues can be resolved in a timely, efficient manner. 

“We see it as a really big win for the Davenport community, so we’re excited to see how things roll out,” Cummings said.

Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here.