RE: [Paddlewise] Land Grabs

Last year, the Los Angeles Times published an article about Broad Beach in
Malibu, CA. This beach has approximately 100 homes, many of which are owned
by some of the biggest names in Hollywood. Many of these homeowners gave
easements for public access to the beach in exchange for being able to get
some variances from the local zoning regs.

Unfortunately, many of these easements have been fenced off with locked
gates. In addition, there were no trespassing signs that were in the wrong
place (actually on public land), or the wording was incorrect - stating that
from the sign and extending 25 feet towards the ocean was private land.
There were also, armed guards who rode around on ATV's to scare off anybody
who ventured onto the sand. They had been known to drive kayakers off who
were standing on damp sand which is well below the high tide line (CA's
border for public and private lands).

After reading the article, I organized a "Make a Statement Paddle" with our
local club. Eight of us paddled over to Broad Beach and landed. We were
armed with a photomap of the beach that was annotated with all of the
public/private boundaries and easements that the CA Coastal Commission had
published on the web.

As soon as the first guard drove by, and saw us looking at the map, he just
waved and drove on. That was a first! This is the first time we ever landed
there without a hassle. I guess the newspaper publicity put them on good
behavior for a while.

We all laughed about the illegal signs - most were on private property, but
the wording and directions were all wrong, ate a snack, and launched back
into the ocean from where we came.

Steve Holtzman
***************************************************************************
PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed
here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire
responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author.
Submissions:     PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net
Subscriptions:   PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net
Website:         http://www.paddlewise.net/
***************************************************************************