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State has a word for unsanctioned beach party: No

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A party on the sand in Huntington Beach with live music and thousands of participants has been planned for June. There’s just one catch: State officials say the event isn’t likely to be allowed.

The event, being spread on social media with the hashtags #CaliLove2016 and #CaliLoveBeachParty, is being billed as taking place at noon June 18 at Huntington State Beach.

As of Monday afternoon, a Facebook event page showed 17,000 people interested and 4,700 people marked as attending. More than 10,000 others had not yet responded to invitations.

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Authorities said the affair is not sanctioned.

“State Parks has a mission, and we have specific guidelines of activities we would like to give to the public,” said Kevin Pearsall, public safety superintendent for California State Parks. “From what I have read on that Facebook page, it doesn’t appear to be close to an event we would approve.”

Pearsall, who oversees the agency’s permitting process, said event organizers have yet to go through the proper special event permitting process, which would include listing all activities, getting fire marshal and health department approval and paying fees of upward of thousands of dollars for things like insurance and security.

He said beach staff and police are on alert about the event, and all attendees would have to go through the beach’s security station to park.

Some people posting on the event page have encouraged illegal activities like leaving behind trash, stealing items from stores and smoking where it is prohibited.

“Since there are no trees and there’s nowhere to hide, it’s so easy for us to take care of any illegal activities,” Pearsall said. “We’re already aware of this event. They gave us a date and time. It’s not going to be that hard for us to stop this.”

Still, event attendees — many of whom have indicated on social media that they’ll be coming from outside the city — have shared their excitement about the party, which organizers said on the Facebook event page will also include a wet T-shirt contest and oil wrestling.

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“It appears to be a couple kids from Placentia who posted the event, and reading the post, they sound like a bunch of wishful thinkers,” Pearsall said. “When people on the event page ask about permitting, they avoid it. It’s a lot of work to put on an event. These people just don’t seem like the characters that know how to pull off something like this.”

Event organizers did not respond to requests for comment.

Pearsall said the beach has allowed similar events, like Wet Electric, a music festival that was given a strict no-alcohol permit after the city had just dealt with the U.S. Open mayhem in 2013, during which rioters broke through glass storefronts and caused other damage.

About 6,000 people attended Wet Electric in 2014, Pearsall said. It was renamed Sundown Music Festival in 2015, when it was issued an alcohol permit and 9,000 people attended.

“The city is concerned about this upcoming party, but the concerns of Wet Electric were more political based,” Pearsall said. “It was a good event, and they paid a lot of money, but it just happened after those U.S. Open riots. It was a really timely thing on that event.”

No arrests were made at the Wet Electric or Sundown Music festivals.

“We try to support events that the city would support as well, and this [party] is not something we would even consider,” Pearsall said.

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Brittany Woolsey, brittany.woolsey@latimes.com

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Twitter: @BrittanyWoolsey

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