San Diego yoga fight deepens over free speech in public parks
A third lawsuit from NamaSteve adds new fuel to San Diego’s fight over whether donation-based yoga in parks is protected speech or a regulated service.
Steve Hubbard, known as NamaSteve, filed a third lawsuit against San Diego on June 22, escalating a fight that now reaches far beyond yoga mats and into the city’s control over public parks, beaches, and online teaching. The new complaint follows a string of citations issued by San Diego Park Rangers in 2025 and asks whether donation-based classes can be treated as commerce rather than protected expression.
The dispute began after San Diego amended its ordinance in March 2024 to prohibit “yoga, fitness classes, and other activities” as a “service” in parks and beaches without a permit. Hubbard and Amy Baack sued the city in federal court in June 2024 after enforcement intensified at coastal locations including Sunset Cliffs and Pacific Beach.
On June 4, 2025, the Ninth Circuit ruled that teaching yoga is speech protected by the First Amendment, that San Diego’s shoreline parks are traditional public forums, and that the ordinance was content-based and likely unconstitutional as applied to the teachers’ classes. It found the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their First Amendment claim and found no plausible connection between teaching yoga and any threat to public safety or enjoyment in the shoreline parks. San Diego sought full review on June 18, 2025, but the Ninth Circuit denied rehearing in September 2025, leaving the injunction in place.
Hubbard’s latest filing centers on three 2025 citations. One came after a May 6 citation for violating the city’s commercial-activity ban. Another followed a May 24 livestreamed class from his home, and a third came the next day for teaching in a park and giving a lecture. The complaint alleges rangers cited Hubbard not only for teaching in person, but also for broadcasting a class from his Pacific Beach home because students could watch it from a park. The city has sought financial records from yoga practitioners in its argument that some classes were paid activity rather than free speech.
Baack has said she resumed teaching donation-based classes at Sunset Cliffs after the injunction, and her first class there was held on June 6, 2025. Her complaint alleges she had been teaching donation-based yoga at Sunset Cliffs since May 2021.
This article was produced by Prism’s automated news system from verified source data, official records, and press releases, then run through automated quality and moderation checks before publishing. The system is built and supervised by the people who set the standards it runs under. Read our full AI policy.
Did this article answer your question?
