Photo: Matthieu Thibaud, by Jason Gould
8-10-10 Nice weekend finally! Anybody notice the zone at Aliso is steadily shrinking? Now, it extends from the end of the parking lot to the rocks at the South end. Everybody has probably noticed that the skimmers are chased out of the swimming zone, a whole lot faster than the reverse situation. Point being? Eternal vigilance is the price for preserving our skim areas. Increasing population growth, meaning more and more bathers will only make the situation worse for the most exposed to lawsuits, namely the lifeguard service, the city, or the county, or whoever holds jurisdiction over the beach. To get a zone expanded, in Laguna Beach (not the county beaches) you must petition the Dept. of Recreation for a hearing on the matter.
Protect your rights. Let’s start with our own city, and petition for more skim areas, and more understanding from the guards.
By understanding, I mean that the City Lifeguards will not allow any, and I mean any, judgement calls on the part of the lifeguard at the beach. In other words, the beach could be empty of all swimmers, and the lifeguard could chase you off just because he has been given strict instructions, on penalty of being fired, if he allows any violation of the lifeguard blackball rules. That isn’t right.
The same year we won approval for a skim zone at Crescent, they took it away at Victoria Beach. Forget having your grom skim where you can keep an eye on him unless you go clear down to Two Rocks in the middle of the cove. These rules run from the time the guard gets to the beach until he leaves. Never mind the actual number of people in the water. Too strict enforcement is too much fear and not enough fun. Let the zones fluxuate in size with the actual crowds. Or better yet, as Shakespear wrote, ‘First we kill all the lawyers.’ It's a comedy!
Tex
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