Many Malibu beach homes are vacation cottages and stand empty through the fall and winter months. Spring and summer are another matter. Summer rents are high, vacancies few and a warm day brings half a million people out to the most famous beaches in the world.
Malibu’s coastline begins officially at Topanga Beach, travels west along Pacific Coast Highway to include Surfrider Beach, Paradise Cove, Point Dume, Zuma Beach and ends at Leo Carrillo State Beach for a total of 26 miles.
These 26 miles used to be patrolled by three, one-man cars. On a good beach day, most of their time would be spent “chasing the radio” and fighting traffic on Pacific Coast Highway, seldom getting anywhere in time to do much good.
When deputies went down on the sand to make an arrest, the full uniform put them at a disadvantage against young adults in normal beach wear. This changed in 1981 when the Lost Hills/Malibu Sheriff’s Station fielded its first beach team.
Twelve deputies from other stations voluntarily signed on to patrol Malibu’s beaches for a summer. Their mission was to walk the sand and enforce the beach ordinances. It was a return to the old “Cop on the Beat” concept in which everyone knew the local cop and accepted him as a part of the community. The team had its own uniform: short green trousers, white socks and gym shoes, gun belt and a white T-shirt with “Sheriff” on the back in big letters.
The local district attorney wanted signs.
“If you’re going to start enforcing the law, you’ve got to give fair warning,” he said.
The first signs were handmade by inmates at Pitchess Honor Rancho. The design was a large “No” on the left with a list of forbidden activity on the right, as in “No alcohol, dogs, glass bottles, fires, nudity, etc.”
The signs weren’t up a week before someone added “fat chicks” to Zuma’s “No” sign. A few days later, “belly boys” was on the list.
“At least the kids are reading them,” said the team sergeant.
The Malibu community was overjoyed with the team. Several homes and apartments were made available at winter rates for team deputies who lived too far to commute.
On the sand, there was a period of adjustment.
“The beach without beer?” said many drunken beachgoers. “Are you guys crazy?”
At the end of the first year, there were plusses. Young families with children returned to the beach, no longer afraid of gang members who had staked out territories at lifeguard towers. Weapons arrests dried up after the first few weeks once the word was out. Enforcement of the “no alcohol” ordinance had an effect in several areas. Lifeguard rescues were nearly halved and traffic accidents and drunk driving arrests on PCH showed a marked decline. If a cop’s job is to ensure a safe, peaceful community, the beach team was doing its job.
From Westward Beach to the west end of Zuma there is more than three miles of uninterrupted sand, much of it 150 yards wide. In case of an emergency, the team needed to be able to traverse this and other similar sections of beach in a hurry.
The Redondo Beach Police Department was using Kawasaki’s three-wheel ATV to advantage. Honda’s three wheel All Terrain Vehicle (ATV) had been on the market a few years. A Malibu lieutenant looked at it thinking, “Hmm.”
The lieutenant called Honda America and asked if Honda would loan the Sheriff’s Department six ATVs for the summer. The lieutenant was routed to three different offices at Honda. Responses at the first two were similar to the drunken beachgoer’s, “Are you crazy?”
Then, “I’m glad you called,” the executive at the third office said. “I’ve been searching for a public agency interested in such a project.”
For the third year of operation, some of the team rode ATVs on the beach. A deputy on an ATV had the same visibility and public accessibility as a man on foot, yet could respond much faster to an emergency.
Eight hours a day on the beach is a young man’s job. Late August of the third year, it was a warm day.
“Indian Summer,” said the lieutenant.
“Gossamer,” corrected the sergeant.
Just to get out of the office, they rode the ATVs along Zuma’s shoreline to Broad Beach.
With the sun low in the west, they sat listening to the surf and the ping of the engines cooling. Two young women, probably in their late teens or early twenties, walked up. “Can we ask you something?” said one.
“Of course,” said the sergeant.
“Are the younger deputies going to be back?” she asked.
“Next summer, dear,” said the sergeant.
Deflated, he started the ATV’s engine and tapped it into gear. “Next summer when school’s out.”
They’ve been coming back for the past 20 years.