SAN DIEGO -- A long-running legal battle over whether to evict a colony of harbor seals that inexplicably took over a popular beach here like a gaggle of tourists overstaying their welcome appeared closer than ever to ending Friday when a judge ruled that they can stay put.

For more than a decade, the seals, dozens of them lounging and lollygagging on a La Jolla beach, have delighted tourists and animal lovers. But they have also irked swimmers and others who are concerned about the waste they produce contaminating the azure waters and their potential for drawing sharks.

People on both sides of the issue battled in state and federal court, winning at one point conflicting rulings, over whether the city should be forced to shoo them away because their chosen spot, a cove known as Children's Pool, was set aside in 1931 for young beachgoers under the terms of a trust that deeded the land to the city.

But a state law that takes effect on Jan. 1 gives the city broad discretion to maintain the beach as it sees fit, and the City Council has indicated that it favors keeping the seals. The state law was drafted at the urging of the city attorney's office.

Judge Timothy B. Taylor of Superior Court, overruling a previous order by a predecessor in the case to disperse the seals, ruled Friday that given the new law, there was no point in kicking the seals out now.