It was perhaps the closest that Malibu’s...

It was perhaps the closest that Malibu’s Chamber of Commerce has come to apocalypse now.

Actor Martin Sheen, the town’s new honorary mayor, has proclaimed that Malibu will be “a sanctuary for aliens and the homeless” in addition to sheltering such celebrities as Johnny Carson, Sylvester Stallone and Larry Hagman.

Sheen, who has been arrested several times during anti-nuclear demonstrations, also declared Malibu a “nuclear-free zone” and “a protected environment for all life, wild and tame.”

All this at a time when the beach colony can’t even unite on whether it should become an incorporated city.

Inasmuch as the sole responsibility of the town’s honorary mayor is to preside over the annual Kiwanis Chili Cook-Off, the Chamber of Commerce was sizzling over Sheen’s written inauguration speech.

“He’s purely a figurehead,” said Anne King, the chamber manager. “We are attempting to set up a meeting with him so that unauthorized statements are not given by him. He should have cleared it with us.”

Would the chamber have approved Sheen’s declaration?

“We certainly would not have,” she said.

No doubt cognizant of the title of “People’s Republic of Santa Monica” hung by critics on the beach city to the south, King added that the chamber does “not take any kind of political position.”

The honorary mayor’s offer of sanctuary to Malibu’s homeless comes nine months after the beating death of the town’s most famous transient. Malibu Joe, as he was known, hasn’t been forgotten.

“People still leave flowers at his plaque,” said Anne Soble, publisher of the Malibu Surfside News. “I even got a call from a newspaper in London a while back, asking if the case had been solved.”

Joe Castello or Costello (he gave both versions), an Italian immigrant, lived outdoors in Malibu for more than 30 years before his death last September at the age of 96 following a robbery. The Sheriff’s Department is still searching for the killer.

After the incident, saddened neighbors contributed more than $3,000 to a fund that paid for a bas-relief plaque for Joe at his last camping spot, a mini-mall parking lot near Pacific Coast Highway. Leftover funds went to the Artifac Tree, a private agency that gives to the needy.

In the meantime, an anonymous individual has taken up the cause of the homeless in a series of letters to the Surfside News, calling for such reforms as the opening of public beach restrooms around the clock for the homeless.

He signs his letters, “Malibu Joe, Too.”

Long Beach is no Malibu. But gone are the days when it had a reputation chiefly as a wild Navy town, when “a chic haunt . . . was a place where the bartender didn’t wear a tattoo,” as author John Gregory Dunne put it.

Now Long Beach has a new slogan (“Most on the Coast”), a just-unveiled world trade center and a huge development planned for the former site of the Pike amusement park.

One more sign of its upward mobility: Wall Street Realty of Long Beach squires its clients around in limousines.