Downtrodden: No sooner did we mention inductions...

Downtrodden: No sooner did we mention inductions into the Fargo, N.D., Walk of Fame and the Chula Vista Walk of Fame than the city of Huntington Beach dedicated a Surfing Walk of Fame over the weekend.

And the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce is feeling a bit trampled upon. After all, the chamber owns trademark rights to the phrase “walk of fame”--and it takes this stuff seriously.

Chamber attorneys have already muscled such rivals as the Downtown Newhall Western Walk of Fame and the Gower Gulch Walk of Fame on Sunset Boulevard into removing “fame” from their titles.

And, now, says Executive Director Leron Gubler, the chamber’s legal eagles are drafting a letter to send to Huntington Beach--to be followed by one to Fargo. “I didn’t know about the Chula Vista walk,” the director admitted. “I’ll have to look into that.”

Gubler was a bit mystified by Huntington Beach’s terminology. “Surfers don’t walk,” he said with a laugh.

*

Calling Surf City, calling Surf City: Huntington Beach Mayor Linda Moulton-Patterson isn’t worried about Hollywood’s legal threat. How could she be when she’s too busy to run the city?

When we phoned her at City Hall, a staff member told us:

“She is not in the office. She is running for county supervisor and has left instructions that she won’t be back in the office until after the primary.”

*

The mayor’s on the phone!In desperation for a quote, we contacted Moulton-Patterson’s campaign office, which tracked her down. She phoned us back to say she “wasn’t aware” of Hollywood’s trademark. As for the Surfing Walk’s name, she said: “We’ll adapt if there’s a legal problem.”

What about the Surfing Hang of Fame?

(OK, you come up with something better.)

*

Why couldn’t they have picked on Chula Vista or Fargo?Among the new set of L.A. greeting cards put out by JDB & Co., by the way, is one that shows an earthquake ripping up the Walk of Fame--the Hollywood Walk of Fame--while tourists scream in terror.

*

Scooped by our fictional selves: We were reading “The Black Ice” by Michael Connelly when we came upon a passage about the L.A. County coroner’s office being forced to store bodies in two refrigerated trucks after a disaster.

“Because of the emergency situation,” the book continued, “county administrators had to get the first trucks they could get their hands on. Painted on the side of one of them had been the words, ‘Live Maine Lobsters!’ Bosch remembered reading about it in the ‘Only in L.A.’ column in The Times.”

We only wish we’d written it. Actually, “The Black Ice” is a fictional mystery about L.A. cop Harry Bosch and we’re honored that Connelly, a former Times staffer, made up a good item.

Not like the time UCLA’s Daily Bruin did a parody of our column. . . . But let’s not get into that.

miscelLAny:

The L.A.-Long Beach area has the second-highest percentage of unlisted phone numbers (64.6%) in the nation, according to a study by Survey Sampling Inc. Sacramento is No. 1 with 64.7%.