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Other visitors carefully kept to the wet sand as they strolled, or put towels down a respectful distance from the homes behind them. The “no dog” rule was being joyously flouted.

Jennifer Simpkins, from Santa Monica, said she had stumbled on the “Coastal Access” sign for the first time that weekend and had come back with her two Italian greyhounds.

“I thought, ‘Oh, my heavens, what a blessing,’ because I’m always looking for somewhere besides a dog park to take my dogs,” she said.

The big scandal of the day was perpetrated by two people who hung a pair of wet shorts on a low wall in front of the thick glass fence protecting David Geffen’s estate home. A cropped-haired security guard in sunglasses and a black shirt swung onto the beach and asked for the shorts to be removed.

“He was nice about it,” said Tanya O’Quinn, a teacher from San Fernando Valley, who was there with her two kids.

I stopped one green-capped homeowner walking on the beach and asked to talk. He declined to give his name, but complained bitterly about the “bags of dog poo left on the beach,” the garbage, and “these Access for All people who bring 60 people down to the beach with tape measures and tell them all to have a good time.” (It is the L.A. Urban Rangers who give small groups “educational tours” about public access.)

The homeowner’s irritation won sympathy from some sun seekers. “I mean, they pay a fortune to live here, and I can’t afford it. So I’ll go to the public (beach) if it’s a problem,” said Carrie Kennebeck, a hairdresser from West Hollywood who was playing volleyball on the wet sand.

As the sun sank and the beach cleared, Jack and Mary Ann Heidt, who have lived on Carbon Beach for 60 years, came out on their porch. Jack Heidt said they “like to see the people here.” But he listed a long series of problems, including people asking to use their bathroom or shower, or even to be let through the house to the road if the access gates are closed. (Access for All opens the gates at sunrise and closes them at sunset, because Geffen would not agree to a gate that allows 24-hour exit from the beach. All other Malibu accessways have such gates.)

“We ask them to leave, but some are quite belligerent and say, ‘This is our property,’” Heidt said. “We’re very upset about this.”

Nobody is saying the system is perfect. The Hollywood stars are now hounded by the paparazzi and deprived of privacy--while the public struggles to find the beach or parking and goes without toilets.

But at the Coastal Commission, it’s felt progress is being made. Linda Locklin says about 85 percent of the 1,300 coastline plots that were on offer to the public in the 1990s have now been taken up. In the 27 miles of Malibu coastline, there are 13 walkways to the beach, four of which are on easements on private land. That’s only one every two miles, on average, but it’s a good start.

“Before, the only way to get in (to Carbon Beach) would be to surf or swim in,” says Locklin. “Now, on one weekend, several hundred people are able to go to the beach. That’s progress.”

Access for All plans to put a 16-foot map detailing the public and private areas on the wall at the Geffen accessway and is looking into other issues of contention. “If we could cooperate, I think we could solve a lot of this stuff,” Steve Hoye says, reflecting on the years of verbal and legal disputes.

Unhappily, the clash of interests on July 4th does not bode well for a lasting peace. But even the obstinate King George III let America go to the colonists eventually. Of course, that little war took eight years. The clash of the beach colonists and the kings and queens of Hollywood might take a bit longer.

Shirley Skeel is a radio and print reporter based in Bothel, Washington. She last wrote about “Living Below Sea Level,” for Coast & Ocean Vol. 23, No. 2.

To see the Carbon Beach access easments in detail, go to www.coastal.ca.gov/access/Carbon_Beach_Access.pdf
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