By Rudabeh Shahbazi
Staff Writer
Beginning at Moonshadows and continuing nearly all the way to the Malibu Pier, there is no way to get onto the three-mile stretch of public sand and sea that once belonged to Malibu’s first residents, the Native American Chumash Indians.
Along Pacific Coast Highway, where there should be public access to public beaches, there is nothing but padlocks, barbed wire and signs that say, “Keep Out” or “No Parking.”
Despite the California Coastal Commission’s attempts to open up beach access, for decades, government agencies have still done next to nothing to open those gates. That’s partly because they don’t want the expense of managing them, and partly because the rich and powerful, many of them movie stars, have used their influence, money and attorneys to keep them closed.
The beachside community is an isolated retreat for the rich and famous. One of the primary sources of income for Malibu is tourism, yet there is really nothing to do here.
It’s obvious that people come for the beaches.
It seems natural that the Malibu community should give back something to those who support it. Pepperdine students take care of the children who live in these houses, pay rent for extra rooms, make the restaurants and businesses thrive, and do good things through community service, from picking up garbage to teaching local children how to read. Not to mention we pay money to watch these people’s movies.
Yet the citizens of Malibu not only resisted a modern sewage system as a means of limiting growth, even as evidence mounted that the septic tanks of the rich and famous were fouling Santa Monica Bay, but they close their beaches.
Residents who live in the houses next to campus even had the nerve to move in after Pepperdine was already constructed, and then complain about the noise so effectively as to close the back gate and John Tyler Drive at a ridiculously early hour for college students.
The good many of people who own these surfside houses only come to Malibu occasionally, but whether they are there or not, they don’t want anybody, least of all college students, on “their” beach.
At the same time as they moan and whine to keep public beaches private, they beg for public assistance every time there is a mudslide or brush fire.
First of all, if you buy a house on a spectacular beach at the edge of a gargantuan metropolis, you ought to expect that someone might like to have a swim or a stroll in the sand every now and then.
Since there is no parking and plenty of public beaches nearby, one person’s house is not going to be overrun, as the house owners argue. And before you buy this house, you might want to take a peak into the state laws of California.
They say the beaches are public property to the high tide line, whether or not you are a movie star. And this is the way it should be.
Second and more important, private citizens, no matter how precious or exclusive their pads, don’t buy a title of authority along with their houses that tells the rest of us which beaches are open and which are closed. That decision is left up to the government of the state.
“Development shall not interfere with the public’s right of access to the sea,” says the California Coastal Act, which voters embraced 30 years ago.
On top of that, many Malibu beach dwellers were allowed to build or modify their homes only in return for guaranteeing public access.
The bottom line is that you can’t buy a waterfront house in this state and tell everyone to keep off the beach any more than you can buy a house in the Santa Monica Mountains and tell everyone to stay off the hiking trails and public parks.
“The beaches of California,” said Sara Wan, Malibu resident and Coastal Commission Chairwoman, “are owned by the public.”
I couldn’t have put it better myself.
January 24, 2002