Considering the rules of going to the beach

I’ve been thinking that maybe we need something other recreational activities have: a governing body that sets out the rules and regulations of that activity. If we had such a booklet, some of the brouhaha might have been avoided because it is clear that Councilman Dick Nichols doesn’t know the rules of the beach.

Now, there are rules and there are rules. The city has certain rules ? when the beaches are open and when they’re closed, when surfboards are allowed, the amount for parking fees. These are all written on signs or in ordinances, so everybody knows them, but there’s a whole body of unwritten common law that lays out the real rules of the beach.

For example, the Rule of Right of Way. This rule states that when you’re in the water, the person farthest out has the right of way. This means that when this person catches a wave, it is the responsibility of everyone in front of that person to get out of his or her way ? swimming to the side, ducking under, whatever.

Now, it’s not sporting to try to hit someone, but the rule is quite clear: You are not required to pull out of the wave or mess up a good ride simply because someone oblivious to the rule is splashing in front of you.

Every regular beachgoer knows the Rule of Right of Way, and they probably learned it the hard way ? by getting run over a few times ? but new times demand new methods, so I propose creating the USBA ? short for United States Beach Assn. ? charged with the responsibility of collecting these rules of common law and printing them in a booklet for public distribution. Novice beachgoers could get a copy and save themselves all sorts of dunkings and bruises.

Such a booklet would have been very helpful to Nichols because he would have known another of the unwritten rules, the Rule of Reservation. Under this rule, you put your towel down on the sand and you have reserved that space for as long as you are at the beach. You own that space just as surely as if you had a deed at the county registrar’s office, and I think most courts would extend the sand provision to grass at the beach.

So, marking out your territory when you arrive in the morning and staying there all day is simply following the rules. It’s also following common sense. If you’ve fought freeway traffic for an hour to get to the beach, you’re going to stay as long as possible to make that drive worthwhile.

We now come to a grayer area ? that of discrimination. It is unfortunate, but discrimination at the beach has a long history. I’m not speaking of state-mandated discrimination that closes areas to certain races or ethnic groups, although there certainly has been that. I’m speaking of localism.

This has nothing to do with skin color. It is an attitude that says beaches are for locals. If you don’t live here or aren’t an accepted regular, you don’t belong, and never mind who owns the beach or whose tax dollars are involved.

In places such as the Palos Verdes peninsula, localism has led to real violence ? rocks thrown at interlopers, car windows smashed, beatings. It’s never gotten to that degree in Newport Beach, but localism has been around here for a long time.

In the 1950s and ‘60s, if you walked down to Little Corona from Ocean Boulevard, the first thing you saw painted on the pathway was “Tourist Go Home,” and it was sincerely meant. Inlanders ? anyone who lived outside the city boundaries ? were unwelcome unless they had been coming to the beach so long they had become regulars.

Regulars had their own uniform ? tan skin (this was before concerns about skin cancer), bare feet and a pair of trunks. Pity the poor fellow who trudged down with his white, untanned skin, his leather shoes with black socks and his umbrella. He was an object of scorn and derision.

No rocks were thrown. Nobody took his towel or knocked over his umbrella. He was just made to feel that he had no business being on the beach.

The funny thing is, compared with today, the beaches back then were practically naked of people. I thought that localism had pretty much died out, overwhelmed by the huge influx of nonlocals our beaches attract. Apparently not.

Well, as a longtime local, I can tell you it was pretty nice in the old days ? uncrowded beaches and uncrowded waves ? but since the change is primarily a result of Southern California’s population growth, I don’t know that we can do anything but graciously put up with the situation. And maybe print up a little booklet of rules.