Laguna Beach Residents trying to ban scuba diving

[blue steal]

common courtesy = common sense.



Agree with WannaLaguna.

 

[covediver]

This really ticks me off. It seems that in one way or another, people have been trying to ban scuba diving in Laguna since I started diving years ago. Its just one more attempt to privatize a public resource a new realm in the saga of western water wars. So what if a few people paid a lot of money to live near the water? Now they don't want to be bothered by the masses of the unwashed? Boo hoo. These are the same folks who want public funds when the Pacific rolls through their huge picture windows. Its a public beach below the mean high tide line and if we have dedicated public access, its open. A few years back it was they tried to keep us away with the claim that with all our gear we were stomping the critters that lived in the tidepool to death. Guess people hauling kayaks and surfboards are lighter on their feet.

 

[RAWalker]

Maybe whenever a neighbor complains about the public, the public should do something to fix the situation like condemn the property under eminent domain. This would increase the area of the beaches and limit the number of complaints. And it really would be in the public's best interest to take back these properties from private owners.

 

[Otter]

common courtesy = common sense.



Agree with WannaLaguna.

Unfortunately both seem to be more and more scarce.

 

[scjoe]

We seem to be getting a little ahead of ourselves. The story circulating is that one particular resident, whose house is supposedly up for sale, has been passing around a petition to close the beaches at Shaw’s and Crescent from dusk to dawn to all public access, not just divers. The petition lists the noise problems created by divers and spearfishers at night. It seeks "residential beach curfews" and excludes "public beaches" such as Main Beach. Apparently, the petitioner realized that trying to close Main Beach at dusk is pretty much a non-starter with the downtown businesses.

There are beaches outside of Laguna that close up at night already, somewhere between 10 pm and 12 am. That seems a more likely outcome than closing beaches at dusk, assuming the city decides on any closure at all.