Working -- Beach comber

Bryce Alderton

HE IS:

Keeping the sand spiffy.

JUST LIKE FAMILY:

Alex Candelario doesn’t mind coming to work at midnight four or five

days a week to begin raking the sand and picking up trash at Huntington

City Beach because he knows who he will see when he gets there.

Fellow equipment operator Mark Wennecamp and supervisors Tim Turner

and Tim Dugan make the time at the beach that much more enjoyable for

Candelario, a 34-year-old Huntington Beach resident.

“My co-workers are like family,” Candelario said. “We’ll never be in

trouble. There’s not one time working there that I’ve ever been in

trouble with somebody.”

Candelario has been a full-time equipment operator at City Beach for

two years after eight years of picking up trash for the city as a

part-time maintenance worker.

Now he drives the tractors that rake the sand each night or early

morning, the machines that sweep the parking lots and service roads in

and around the beach and the machines that pick up and empty the trash

cans on the beach.

Before a rain storm he also opens the gates on storm drains in and

around the beach parking lot.

“I do too many things,” Candelario said, laughing. “I love my job.”

PULL UP A CHAIR, OR A COUCH

In addition to the bottles, cans and plastic cups Candelario sees

strewn on the sand and asphalt most nights, he has also seen couches and

chairs sitting on the beach.

“People leave them there and we throw them away,” he said.

Trash piles up most often after a holiday like the Fourth of July,

Candelario said, but he added that there isn’t one specific day that

historically has been worse for trash.

“People don’t put [trash] in containers so there’s more work to do,”

Candelario said.

Summer is busier than the winter for Candelario. He said in the

winter, two or three people each drive a sweeper and rake the sand

compared to 15 or 20 in the summer.

“We hire more people in the summer,” Candelario said. “It’s my second

home, I love the job.”

His other home has wife Maria, and 6-year-old Monica.

Candelario spends half of his nine-and-a-half hour shift sweeping the

parking lots and service roads and the other half grating the sand and

emptying the trash cans.

“My favorite is the sweeper machine,” Candelario said. “I like keeping

the service roads clean.”

He also likes the atmosphere he finds in the wee hours of the morning.

“It’s good, there’s not too many people around,” Candelario said.

“It’s peaceful at that time.”

* BRYCE ALDERTON is the news assistant. He can be reached at (714)

965-7173 or by e-mail at bryce.alderton@latimes.com.