A Class-Action Lawsuit’s been Filed Against the Lunada Bay Boys

It didn’t have to come to this. The fact that a group of grown men still practice old-school localism at the routinely disappointing (occasionally firing) break at Lunada Bay is asinine. Surf media outlets have fueled the fire (us included, however not to the most extreme extent) and turned a local issue into a news cluster fuck. And now the U.S. federal gov is throwing gas on the flames.

A class-action lawsuit has been filed against famed surf gang, the Lunada Bay Boys (not to be confused with the Ex-Presidents). El Segundo police officer Cory Spencer (who looks like a guy that’d probably drop in on you on a 9-foot log and feign that he “didn’t see you”) and Diana Milena Reed (a 29-year-old “aspiring big wave surfer” from Malibu) are the plaintiffs in the case. They’re asking a federal judge to stop the Bay Boys from congregating and perpetrating their various forms of mayhem, however cliché they may be.

The suit is also pointing a finger at the affluent community of Palos Verdes Estates. They’re asking the judge to require the city to investigate and prosecute the surf hooligans responsible for said mayhem.

El Segundo police officer, Cory Spencer’s had enough. Photo: LA Times

And the mayhem in question? You know, just the classics: car waxing, tire slashing, rock throwing, being a general dick in the water, etc. Unfortunately the defendants are all middle-aged men living on trust funds, so their actions are of a certain irreverence.

“Palos Verdes Estates has a long history of deliberate indifference in not investigating or otherwise policing acts of violence and vandalism against visiting beachgoers,” the suit alleges. “The response is always the same: City leaders acknowledge the problem, promise to do something, and then do little or nothing.” 

The L.A. Times reports that last month the California Coastal Commission sent a letter to Palos Verdes Estates officials that said the Bay Boys are so “entrenched” that they are subject to the commission’s watchdog regulations and permitting processes.

“Precluding full public use of the coastline at Palos Verdes Estates, including the waters of Lunada Bay, whether through physical devices … or impediments, such as threatening behavior intended to discourage public use of the coastline, represents a change of access to water, and, thus, constitutes development,” reads the letter.

There are 3.8 million people living in L.A., of course there’s going to be the occasional territorial dispute when it comes to wave rights, but hot damn, we can’t wait to see how this one plays out in court.