California, home to nearly 40 million souls, has long embraced open beach access to all. It is generally illegal to block access to those wishing to come build sandcastles or lovingly splash in the sometimes temperate waters. The state’s Coastal Commission has laws and whatnot on the books declaring such but that has not stopped the ultra-wealthy from trying.
Now, usually this business occurs in Malibu where multi-million dollar homes front the iconic sands and certain of their owners try to build fences, and such, to keep interlopers out. Up San Francisco way, though, as case has rolled all the way up to the United Supreme Court and back down again with no resolution thus far.
It features the very handsome Indian-American venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, his 32 million dollar estate and Martins Beach, just south of Half Moon Bay. The co-founder of Sun Microsystems purchased the property in 2008 and immediately built a fence blocking beach access to surfers, likely imagining them unwashed and generally gross. The Surfrider Foundation immediately sued and the two parties fought through the legal system to Washington D.C. where the SCOTUS refused to hear such a squabble and let the lower ruling stand, which favored Surfrider.
Khosla, unsatisfied, has asked the judge to vacate that decision but the judge has refused thereby, I think, reopening the whole business and keeping surfers out until all appeals etc. are finished.
Or maybe I’m reading it wrong.
In any case, if you had a oceanfront castle would you try to block your fellow surfer from paddling?
The BeachGrit way.
More as the story develops.
The post San Francisco billionaire locked in epic battle to keep “unwashed and generally gross” surfers off beach appeared first on BeachGrit.