Before Sara Wan could spread her towel on Malibu's Broad Beach on Sunday, a goateed security guard swooped in on his all-terrain vehicle and warned her not to sit on the dry sand. "You're on private property," he said.
The 64-year-old Malibu resident and California Coastal commissioner sat down in the sand anyway and refused to budge. The encounter grew more testy until the security guard snarled that he was calling the Sheriff's Department.
"You better look at the law girl -- I'm telling you," the security guard said and then tore off down the beach in his four-wheel Honda ATV.
Altercations between beachgoers and security guards occur with regularity at Broad Beach, a small oceanfront community where nonresident sunbathers, picnickers and others are booted off the dry sand, which the community considers private property.
Most beachgoers slink away. This incident ended differently. Soon five sheriff's deputies who had ridden ATVs up the coast from nearby Zuma Beach surrounded Wan. She took the opportunity to give an impromptu civics lesson, explaining that she was, in fact, sitting on public beach.
Wan produced the documents to show that, despite the no-trespassing signs, the homeowner had granted public access to a 25-foot strip of dry sand 22 years ago. The public easement was offered in exchange for the Coastal Commission's permission for expansion of the home.
"What do I know -- I'm just a dumb deputy," said Sheriff's Deputy Gail Sumpter, the first one with a badge to confront Wan.
California's public access law is confusing and lends itself to conflict. Unlike laws in Oregon, Texas and Hawaii, where beaches are public to the first line of vegetation, California law guarantees public access only seaward of the mean high tide line. As a practical matter, that means the public portion is on the damp sand -- a rule rigorously enforced on Broad Beach by security guards and sheriff's deputies called as backup.
The situation on Broad Beach is a bit more complicated. Officials with the Coastal Commission and State Lands Commission note that 43 of the 108 houses along Broad Beach have public easements on the dry sand.
Most of these consist of a 25-foot-wide strip of sand just inland from the mean high tide. Others cover the entire stretch of dry sand up to houses' decks or bulkheads.
It's impossible to tell which houses have these easements, and which do not, without carrying a sheaf of maps and property records.
