If I was really, really, really rich,
would I turn into a total dick?
Everywhere in America, all of us own the beach up to the
maximum high tide line and a bit beyond. Public beach access pisses off the
dicks who own houses on the beach. They should get over it and after all these
years you’d think they would have, not so, my children, not so.
In Newport Beach, California a group of folks who own
multi-multi-multi-million dollar homes on the beach decided laws that have been
on the books for over a half a century don’t really apply to them. What these
asshats have done is to extend their landscaping onto public property. The city
has given them 2 weeks to get their shit off public land. The pearl clutching
in Newport Beach is getting frenetic.
In one case an ‘investor” type guy put a lawn, walkways,
seating, shrubs and a god damned fire pit on public property. His landscaping
project extends 40 onto the beach and now he is whining that the California
Coastal Commission and the City of Newport Beach is being unfair to him by
giving him two weeks to remove it. I think the city should bulldoze his
landscape project, load it in a dump truck and send him the bill. Before they
do, I think a bunch of the locals should go down to the beach, build a blazing fire
in his fire pit, roast some wieners, crack a few beers, sit on his lawn furniture,
play some really loud music and have one hell of good time.
More on the beach…
In the 70’s I stayed at a hotel in Miami Beach. This hotel
had figured out a way to make you pay to be in the sun, in freaking Florida.
You could go out to the pool bar conveniently covered by a large roof, the
price (over-priced) of a drink only allowed you to sit in the shade. If you
carried your drink to a chair in the sun you had to rent the chair. If you
wanted to swim, you had to rent a chair and a towel and if you wanted to go
down the steps to the beach and sit in the sun, you were required to rent a
hotel beach chair. The beach was public but if you wanted to get on it you had
to walk about a mile from either direction.
Unless we start paying attention to Global Warming, the big
dollar houses on beach will become fish habitat and the shacks 3 blocks from
the beach will be “on the water” and the argument will start all over again.
Hear, hear!
ReplyDeleteOr they could dump the bull dozed material, back onto his lot...
ReplyDeleteI was just thinking, Forest Cove Park a couple of blocks from my house is really nice, I'd like to build a fire pit, lay some pavers and maybe build a little sun shelter of some kind. I could tap into the light pole, etc...
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