Popular yoga instructor “NamaSteve” intensified his battle with the city of San Diego, filing a third lawsuit in a fight over free outdoor yoga.
Steve Hubbard, also known as “NamaSteve,” claimed park rangers intimidated and illegally ticketed him for holding free yoga classes at the beach and his home, in a lawsuit filed June 22.
Hubbard is a fitness instructor who teaches donation-based outdoor yoga classes at Palisades Park in Pacific Beach.
He received three tickets in May of 2025, with two tickets coming at the beach and one ticket coming from his own backyard after he live-streamed a yoga class.
Hubbard claimed in his suit that he was intimidated into not exercising his first amendment rights, according to reporting from NBC7.
“Even after the U.S. District Court ruled the city’s ordinance prohibiting ‘giving any lecture’ in a city park violated the First Amendment, park rangers continued citing our client for this, including going to his home and citing him for teaching yoga online because it could be viewed in a park,” said Hubbard’s attorney Bryan Peasein a statement to Times of San Diego.
San Diego began enforcing a revised municipal ordinance in 2024 that targeted unpermitted commercial activity in parks, beaches, and public spaces. Under the regulation, groups of four or more people engaged in “massage, yoga, dog training, fitness classes” need a permit in order to operate.
As a result, Hubbard and another yoga teacher, Amy Baack, sued San Diego –– their first lawsuit –– for a preliminary injunction to stop the city from carrying out the bans, focusing on the argument of the First Amendment.
While initially unsuccessful at the district court, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals later granted the injunction stating that “teaching yoga is protected speech by the First Amendment.”
The second lawsuit was also later filed in state court to directly attack the local rules. In that battle, city attorneys have served subpoenas on Hubbard’s Venmo, bank statements, and GPS location records of students who have donated to his classes.
The state court case is scheduled to take place in January 2027.
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