Surfing banned in nearly half of Surf City

Jenny Marder

Surfing is now banned at more than half of Surf City’s state beaches

with a recent order that blackballs surfing on weekends along more

than a mile of Bolsa Chica State Beach.

This, combined with a surfing ban at all of Huntington State Beach

except for the area south of Tower 2, means that surfers have been

displaced from more than 50% of the city’s state beaches.

“We have too many people doing the same things at the same place,”

state beach officer Eric Smith said. The beaches are just becoming

too busy, he said.

Wind surfers and kite surfers have also been blackballed from

their favorite location at Bolsa Chica State Beach and are being

forced to take their adventure sports elsewhere.

The posted order was set down after a officials began receiving a

flood of complaints from beachgoers that the surfers posed a threat

to swimmers.

Most of the problems have been occurring at Bolsa Chica State

Beach, where heightened winds draw wind and kite surfers out in

droves.

“The lifeguard has deemed this a hazard,” Smith said. “It gets to

be a point when we have so many masses of people on the beach that

[the surfers] endanger other people around them. “

The size of the equipment and the speed at which wind and kite

surfers travel are dangerous with so many people at the beaches,

Smith said.

A kite sail, which can be as long as 100 feet, is attached by four

lines to a control bar. The surfer straps his feet onto a 4- to

6-foot surfboard and steers with the handlebar as the wind launches

the boarder from the sand and into the water.

Windsurfing boards, which are directly connected to the sail, can

be more than 8 feet long.

Both can reach speeds of 30 mph.

Steve Kent, owner of Kites, Etc. in Sunset Beach, said that while

he understands the concern, the kite surfing community as a whole

shouldn’t be punished for the reckless behavior caused by a few wild

kids. He hopes that the new orders will serve as a catalyst for

organization between the kite surfers and beach officials.

“A couple apples don’t warrant a whole barrel,” Kent said. “We

need to set up some ordinances and guidelines, and let people who

violate them be responsible for their own actions. The last thing we

want to do is hurt anybody.”

Everybody who buys a kite sail at Kite’s Etc. is provided with an

hour of instruction on safety and handling of the kite.

“It’s a very instruction-oriented sport,” Kent said. “It’s

necessary, in a lot of ways, to take a lesson because you don’t

really know how it operates until you know how it operates. There are

instances where people can enter the beaches and not have any idea of

the safety and power of the kite.”

Lifeguards have not decided whether they will continue the bans

past the summer season.

“As lifeguards, our biggest concern is the public safety of the

water,” Smith said. “We don’t wait for something to happen.”