There was a time when all of Malibu was privately owned. The Rindge Family purchased 13,330-acre Rancho Malibu for $10 an acre in 1892. In subsequent decades, as railways and roads were forced through, the land was parceled out to private owners, some of whom used train boxcars as summer cottages. As time passed, prize sections of beachfront were snapped up by Hollywood celebrities and developers.

The current emotion-charged conflict started in 1972, when the people of California, outraged at being increasingly walled off from beaches, passed Proposition 20. That voter initiative created the California Coastal Commission, which was made permanent by the California Coastal Act of 1976. After 1972, any development on the coast needed a Commission permit.

Linda Locklin, the Commission’s coastal access program manager, says if a building proposal is substantial enough, the Commission can require that some land is set aside for public access, or that a passageway to the beach be opened to the public across privately owned land. The mechanism for that was the “offer to dedicate” (OTD) an access easement.

Over time, as permits for bigger and better homes were sought in Malibu, more and more land began to be offered to the public. However, at Carbon Beach, no one could get through the wall of villas, so nonresident beachcombers remained rare.

That changed in 1981. Following a colorful fight with Carbon Beach homeowners, a public passageway was opened at the western end of the beach. The travails at Billionaires’ Beach were sardonically penned by Garry Trudeau in his Doonesbury cartoon strip, with the result that the walkway was named after his layabout character Zonker Harris.

The Zonker Harris passageway sent barefoot and barely-dressed citizens traipsing across beachfront that provides second or third or fourth homes to celebrities such as Oracle boss Larry Ellison, Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, and philanthropist billionaire Eli Broad.

But Zonker Harris was well to the west end of 1.5-mile-long Carbon Beach, and most visitors plunked down close to the entrance. It was another two decades before a second walkway opened on the beach’s east end--the very passage that led to the unruly events of this July 4th.

But to backpedal just for a minute: For many years Carbon Beach homeowners had been making offers--on paper--to allow public access on their beachfront in return for building permits. But most of them continued to enjoy their privacy, not only because there was only one public accessway, but because, by law, some person or group had to “accept” the homeowner’s offer to dedicate the area to public use, and open the accessway. On Carbon Beach, nobody did that. In 1983, David Geffen wanted a permit to build his megamansion over three beach lots. To get it, he offered some beachfront (a lateral easement) and an OTD for an accessway alongside his house, leading from the road to the sea. For 18 years, nobody picked up Geffen’s offer. To do so would have required readiness to face the wrath of beachfront homeowners and their lawyers.