Not So Fast There, Huntington Beach

A 13-year feud between Huntington Beach and Santa Cruz over the moniker “Surf City USA” is heading toward a political showdown in Sacramento.

State Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) waded into the ongoing north-south controversy Tuesday with a proposed Senate resolution to designate Santa Cruz in his district as “Surf City USA.” The resolution (SCR 60) is now before a legislative committee.

The news riled people in Huntington Beach, where tourism officials have filed nine trademark applications for “Surf City USA” and in July rolled out a new logo and Surf City merchandise line.

“Is there any action we need to take to ensure this bill is killed as soon as possible?” visitors bureau chairman Cormac O’Modhrain beseeched state Sen. John Campbell (R-Irvine) by letter Wednesday.

The five-member Senate Rules Committee, which must support the resolution before it goes to a full vote, held off hearing the matter until next week. That heartened Campbell, who reminded his colleagues of the Huntington Beach trademark rights.

“I took [the delay] as a good sign that hopefully people are recognizing that we have more important things to do and it’s not something the Legislature needs to stick its nose in,” Campbell said.

Allowing Huntington Beach to monopolize the name would be “a sham,” Simitian said Thursday.

“I think the commoditization of Surf City is really unfortunate,” he said. “Surf City is as much a state of mind as it is a place, and you can’t trademark a state of mind.”

He said his resolution wouldn’t preclude another city from using the name “Surf City” but would give Santa Cruz its rightful stake, something that could be helpful in its opposition to the Huntington Beach trademark effort.

“This is a bit of mischief, but it puts the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on notice that there are other Surf City USAs out there that might take an opposite view to [Huntington Beach’s] application,” Simitian said.

His resolution lists nine reasons Santa Cruz deserves official state recognition as “Surf City USA,” including local Jack O’Neill’s invention of the wet suit, the 11 world-class surf breaks there and because surfing was launched in California in 1885 when three Hawaiian princes rode redwood boards where the San Lorenzo River meets the Pacific in Santa Cruz.

The Senate resolution, which would express legislative sentiment but has no force of law, contends that the Northern California city of about 56,000 “is well-known around the world as a center of a precious but hard-to-define ‘surf culture’ that reflects a ‘laid-back’ and relaxed lifestyle.”

Santa Cruz Mayor Mike Rotkin said he shared concerns with Simitian earlier this year that Santa Cruz businesses using the name “Surf City” could be sued by the Huntington Beach Conference and Visitors Bureau for trademark infringement if the name was authorized by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

The city intends to file official opposition to the trademark applications, Rotkin said.

“On a certain level, it’s completely absurd, because we have more serious problems to deal with,” he said. “But we can’t ignore the fact that we might be sued, and the city has to defend its interests.”

For Huntington Beach, the matter also transcends bragging rights. About $250,000 was spent to research and file trademark rights for the name, visitors bureau officials said, and millions of dollars have been invested in merchandising agreements.

“I can only imagine it’s a case of envy on their part,” said Doug Traub, president and CEO of the Huntington Beach visitors bureau, whose website is www.surfcityusa.com.

“It seems Santa Cruz has perfected whining to an art form,” he said. “They’ve never used the trademark name to promote themselves, but now [that] we’ve decided to do something with it, they obviously want a piece of the action.”

Another attempt in 1992 failed to draw the Legislature into taking sides between the state’s dueling surf capitals. Then-Assemblyman Tom Mays (R-Huntington Beach) asked the state to recognize the city as “Surf City Huntington Beach,” a move that died after Santa Cruz officials groused and local lawmakers intervened.