Bait Shop Is Small Fry Amid the Sharks

So much is happening in Malibu these days, I may have to open a satellite office in a prime beach location just to keep an eye on things.

As you sit and read this, the Coastal Commission is still trying to get big shots on Broad Beach -- home to Steven Spielberg, Danny DeVito, Goldie Hawn and Dustin Hoffman -- to call off the jackbooted rent-a-cops they pay to chase the hoi polloi off public coastland.

Meanwhile, TV tycoon A. Jerrold Perenchio won approval to keep the 10-acre backyard golf course he built without permits, and bleeding-heart David Geffen still has a lock on his gate to keep the poor off the beach and out of sight.

I was thinking of resurrecting my plans for Sand Aid, a fundraising concert to reclaim Malibu’s public beaches from Hollywood hypocrites, when I stumbled upon yet another cruelty.

This one involves a seaside institution that dates to 1946, serves as an unofficial social hall and is filled with Malibu history. In this case, the villain is the state, which is trying to destroy it.

I’m talking about Wylie’s Bait Shop, a quaint little coconut of a shack that sits on the Pacific Coast Highway near Topanga Canyon.

A salty siren named Ginny Wylie runs the shop, which looks like one of the huts from “Gilligan’s Island.”

The shop has plank flooring, fishnets draped from the ceiling and a wall filled with photographs of stingrays, sharks, sand bass and giant halibut -- all of it caught with worms, squid, anchovies and lures from Wylie’s.

“The grunion are running,” Ginny told a customer while I stood back and watched a true professional at work.

Having first set foot in the shop roughly half a century ago, and having done her share of casting, Ginny knows her stuff. If grunion are on the move, she explained, that means they’re being chased by halibut, and she can tell you where to hook them -- whether you’re fishing off the beach, the Malibu pier or a kayak.

“This place is a classic,” said Mike Hall, who came in for some squid and anchovies to go fishing off the pier. A sign on the wall says: “Old Fishermen Never Die. They Just Smell That Way.”

A steady stream of fishermen was followed by two little surf boys who came in dripping wet. They bought a couple of Abba-Zaba bars and caught the next wave.

“The best thing about the business,” says Ginny, whose grandfather Bill opened up 58 years ago, “is the diversity of people. I get everyone from gang-bangers to movie stars, and when they come in here, they’re treated like friends rather than customers.”

Ginny’s problem is that three years ago, the California Department of Parks and Recreation spent $43 million to buy the land her bait shop and house sit on, along with 1,659 surrounding acres. The plan is to extend Topanga State Park.

But in buying the land from the Los Angeles Athletic Club, the state inherited several dozen residential tenants living in funky seaside bungalows, along with several businesses.

Relocating these people -- many of whom counted themselves “artists” and “rebels” -- has involved no guns, but plenty of lawyers.

The state didn’t help its cause when it paid $255,000 for one tenant to leave. Others naturally balked at lesser offers. Roughly $6 million later, the state is still trying to wrestle two dozen holdouts off the land, and the mess is tied up in court.

You’d have to say the tenants were lucky bums for many years, paying next to nothing for prime real estate. But Craig Dummit, an attorney representing the holdouts, wonders why anyone had to be moved out at all.

“A unique historic community is being relocated just to put in hiking trails, and everyone’s always hiked through there anyway,” says Dummit.

“People lived an eclectic lifestyle we haven’t seen much of since the 1960s. I remember the first meeting I went to about the relocation, and everyone was joining in a big circle, locking arms and passing around an abalone shell with some burning weeds or whatever. It was an Indian ritual to give them power.”

Ginny was offered up to $20,000 to fade into the sunset, but she considered it an insult. She didn’t care much for the manners of the relocation man who tried to boot her out, either.

“It wasn’t an offer, it was a threat,” says Ginny. “He had me backed up against the sinkers.”

The state then told Ginny she could stay a few years longer. But she won’t sign that deal, either, and here’s why:

The state is considering having a bait shop in the newly extended park, which makes sense, considering the Pacific Ocean is across the street. But the state won’t guarantee Ginny that she can run the shop. By law, a state attorney told me, park concessions must be put out to bid.

With this kind of treatment, Ginny says, “I should be wearing a burka. After having a business for 60 years, it’s mine.” She promises to stand up to the bulldozer if she has to.

Something is wrong in America when the likes of David Geffen and Steven Spielberg treat the California coast like their own oyster, while just down the road Ginny Wylie is getting tossed off the beach.

Sand Aid 2004 is coming this summer. Meet me on Broad Beach.

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Steve Lopez writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at [email protected] and read previous columns at www.latimes.com/lopez.