City approves plans for Surfer’s Hall of Fame

Tariq Malik

HUNTINGTON BEACH -- Residents and tourists may soon be able to

measure themselves, or their hands and feet at least, against some the

greatest surfers to ride the ocean waves.

On Tuesday, the Planning Commission unanimously approved plans for a

Surfer’s Hall of Fame in front of Huntington Surf & Sport at 300 Pacific

Coast Highway, featuring the handprints and footprints of accomplished

wave riders.

“I love surfing, and this has been a dream of mine since I was a

child,” said 27-year resident, surfer and Surf & Sport shop owner Aaron

Pai, who proposed the monument. “It means a lot to surfing fans and the

athletes themselves.”

City officials said while Huntington Beach does have a Surfer’s Walk

of Fame along Main Street, across the street near Jack’s Surfboards from

where Pai’s monument will go, the Hall of Fame is a different concept

similar to the impressions at Hollywood’s Mann’s Chinese Theater, where

celebrities are honored.

The surfing tribute includes the removal of a fountain at the south

corner of Main Street and Pacific Coast Highway, making room for 260

spaces of colored concrete to preserve the imprints of accomplished

surfers where the public can view them. A bronze plaque will commemorate

the area, and a central monument will be lit at night.

Anyone opposing the plan has 10 days from Tuesday’s decision to file

an appeal and take the matter to City Council, although officials with

the project don’t expect a fight.

“We feel that the Surfer’s Hall of Fame will reconfirm the city’s

image as Surf City,” said monument architect Bob Thornton, adding that

the hall of fame would be the first-ever for the sport.

City officials said the monument could also increase safety in the

area. Children often climb up the water stairs that make up the plaza’s

six-foot tall fountain, and have fallen to the concrete ground below

Loitering around the fountain would also be diminished, they added.

For the last six years, Pai has collected the concrete impressions of

champion surfers and displayed them as monuments in his shop. A

five-person selection board evaluates candidates and chooses hall of

famers based on their individual accomplishments or contributions to the

sport.

Ceremonies are held to coincide with surfing competitions, with

wetsuit inventor Jack O’Neill and resident Corky Carroll, a five-time

surfing champion, are two of the 37 concrete slabs bearing imprints and

written sayings in the shop’s hall of fame.

Surfing, like any other sport, has a hall of fame, which everyone

should have the opportunity to enjoy, Carroll said.

“I think it’s going to be fun,” added Commissioner Connie Mandic. “It

will be right across from the pier and people are going to be able to

step right into the feet of these surfers.”