Malibu Ca

How sweet is life when you live next to a celebrity in Malibu? Outside Bob Dylan's house, the answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind. That's what some of the singer-songwriter's neighbors are charging in an increasingly odoriferous dispute over a portable toilet at his sprawling ocean view estate on Point Dume. Residents contend that the nighttime sea breeze sends a noxious odor from a portable toilet on Dylan's property wafting into their homes.

The beachfront city of Malibu voted Monday to outlaw a form of youthful daredevilry known as speedboarding -- an extreme hobby that has grown increasingly popular here. Speedboarders don protective helmets, knee and elbow pads, and sometimes even sleek bodysuits before hopping onto long skateboards and rocketing down steep public streets and canyon roads at speeds greater than 40 mph. Enthusiasts swear by speedboarding's addictive adrenaline rush.

If regional water quality officials approve a proposed ban on septic systems in central Malibu as expected, residential property owners in the affected area would be on the hook for $1,000 a month to pay for a centralized wastewater treatment system, city officials said Monday. Commercial property owners benefiting from the treatment system could be required to lay out significantly more, the city said. Malibu said in a statement that such a system would cost $52 million, more than three times the $16.7-million projection that the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board has suggested at recent community workshops.

Authorities used pepper spray to help end a racially charged fight among two dozen juvenile prisoners at Camp Kilpatrick in Malibu over the weekend, authorities said. The brawl began with name-calling between an African American and a Latino in the camp's dormitory about 6:30 p.m. Saturday, said L.A. County Chief Probation Officer Robert Taylor. The brawl lasted about an hour, and two staff members and several inmates suffered minor injuries. Twenty-three inmates were removed from the camp and housed at two other facilities, and one of the housing units sustained minor damage, Taylor said.

CALLUSED palms and bandaged fingers; broken fingernails stained black with dirt -- Hollywood actor and director Emilio Estevez proudly shows off his vineyard worker hands as he walks the vine rows. Four years ago, Estevez planted this half-acre Pinot Noir vineyard around his Malibu home.

Can Ken Starr tame Malibu's rabid paparazzi? That's what Malibu officials are hoping as they turn to the independent counsel who investigated President Clinton's involvement with White House intern Monica Lewinsky to help them craft restrictions on "pap packs" that descend on the celebrity-rich coastal town. Malibu officials say their town has been overrun by members of the celebrity media, who camp out at the city's few shopping centers and follow celebrities down Pacific Coast Highway.

After hundreds of Internet threats and the mobilization of sheriff's deputies by air, land and sea, Saturday's much-anticipated revival of the paparazzi-surfer war in Malibu came down to this: One woman with a handwritten sign and an unflinching desire to make a point.

State law enforcement officials are investigating whether 70 retirees and other investors in Northern California were bilked when they put up $6.4 million for construction loans on Malibu land that may be undevelopable. The investors have foreclosed on the land, which is worth just a fraction of its appraised value as prime home building property. But they're still trying to figure out where their money went. "Nobody knows what happened to it," according to Fred I.

Since the recent fires in Malibu, city officials have fought to ban overnight camping in certain hilly canyons above the city out of a fear that the visitors could bring greater fire danger to the area, among other problems.

Nailing down the facts in two June brawls between paparazzi and Malibu locals would seem to be as easy as a mouse click. Video and still cameras captured the beach fracases from multiple angles, and the footage was posted online for all to see. But a month later, much remains unclear. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department has not charged anyone in the incidents, and one surfer says a knife wielded by a paparazzo was edited out of the video sold to Internet gossip sites.