WHEELED AWAY: Bicycle owners have been pedaling...

WHEELED AWAY: Bicycle owners have been pedaling to the Huntington Beach police station in record numbers this week for bike licenses, required by city ordinance. . . . Reason: The police impounded about 250 unlicensed bikes to help control a July 4 beach melee. But Sgt. T.R. Swan suggests: “People are taking out the licenses because they realize it’s the right thing to do.” It also gives the police a record to help in recovering stolen bicycles.

LIFE’S A BEACH: One way to love your coastline: Assemblyman Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove) is launching “adopt-a-beach” legislation. . . . Under the bill, which cleared a key Senate committee Tuesday, community groups or businesses would promise to keep a beach area clean. In exchange, a small sign would be erected in the sand honoring their efforts. It’s just like the adopt-a-highway program: the better the spirit, the spiffier Orange County’s beaches.

HELLO WORLD: Just one thing surprised Western State University College of Law Prof. John L. Hill about the state Supreme Court’s recent decision to give genetic parents Mark and Crispina Calvert of Tustin custody in a surrogate mother dispute: Hill hadn’t expected to be center stage. The justices used Hill’s New York University Law Review article favoring genetic parents’ rights to support their opinion. . . . Hill, 33, who specializes in legal ethics at the Irvine campus, says: “We law professors often think of these issues in the abstract. It was great to see my work brought into the real world.”

PARIS IN NEWPORT: If you have any French blood, then you know that today is Bastille Day, the 204-year-old celebration of the French Revolution. Newport Beach’s Le Meridien Hotel, which celebrated all weekend, winds it up today with a pool party from 5 to 7:30 p.m. . . . There should be a lot of private parties too. Census figures show not only 50,000-plus in Orange County who claim French ancestry, but 10,000 who say they speak French instead of English in the home.