GANG WATCH : Surf and Turf

Southern California’s surf scene has a long history of turf problems. From Santa Barbara to San Clemente, surfers stake out favorite beaches and return to them with a fervent regularity akin to religious pilgrimage.

That’s fine, but sometimes surfers push their loyalty to a particular place beyond acceptable bounds, using intimidation, vandalism and even violence to keep strangers away from “their” beach. One such group of territorialists can be found among the surfers who frequent Lunada Bay, on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

As reported this week by The Times’ Tim Waters, the reputation of the surly crowd that hangs out at Lunada Bay is such that surfers from elsewhere know that the beach there is for “locals only,” in the terse phrase of one surf publication.

But wait a minute, dudes. The beach at Lunada Bay, like the rest of California’s coastline, is supposed to be open to the public. That means anyone can use it whether the “locals” like it or not.

The “locals” at Lunada Bay are mostly upper-middle-class kids who live in the various well-off neighborhoods of the peninsula. Face it. If some black or Chicano kids tried to stake out a stretch of beach as “ours,” the authorities would dub them a gang and be down on them in a flash. So what makes the surfers at Lunada Bay any different?

Nothing at all. The beach is not a private preserve. The authorites thus have a job to do. The local community must totally support police efforts this summer to keep Lunada Bay open to the public.