Trestles Surfers Closed to Idea of a U.S. Open
SAN CLEMENTE — Their eclectic ranks include a commercial airline pilot, a custodian, a car salesman, a lawyer and an electrician, just to name a few.
The 50 to 60 surfers who make up the fledgling Trestles Surfing Assn. are all over the map sociologically and demographically, but they share a common thread: a desire to limit the number of private contests at Lower Trestles, a stretch of San Onofre State Beach that is their favorite public playground and one of California’s revered breaks.
The loose-knit group has been angered in recent weeks with the news that the U.S. Open of Surfing, one of the world’s largest contests, has left Huntington Beach and could be moving south to the Trestles area.
“That’s the word . . . that they’re bringing in another big contest,” said Al Roy, 49, a pilot from San Clemente. “There used to be just one contest, at Lowers. Then there were two. This year there were five. If there can be five in ‘96, does that mean there will be seven in ‘97? This trend has us seriously concerned.”
Australian surfing promoter Graham Cassidy, a representative of CSI, a London-based television company, has proposed putting a world tour-caliber, weeklong contest similar to the U.S. Open at Lower Trestles in May. The tour, based in Orange County, holds contests for an elite group of 44 men and 11 women at sites throughout the world including Hawaii, Japan, Australia and Indonesia.
In recent years, the U.S. Open has lured as many as 250,000 spectators to its six-day runs in Huntington Beach. Cassidy is suggesting a smaller-scale contest in terms of numbers of competitors, but because all the world’s top surfers will be there, it could attract thousands.
Representatives from the state parks department have agreed to meet with the Trestles association on the issue on Tuesday at San Clemente State Park. But no agreement with any promoter has been made and state parks officials have chastised contest promoters for advertising otherwise, said Mike Tope, chief ranger for the South County area’s state parks and beaches.
“No one has a permit here for 1997,” said Tope, adding that no applications for contests will be approved until the parks system has completed a survey on the issue and reanalyzed its policy on contests at Trestles.
Tope said the state will have the results of two surveys, done by his department and Surfing magazine, for the meeting, which will include a discussion on limiting hours of contests. If there is going to be a contest, the association favors starting it at 8 a.m. and ending final heats by 5 p.m., which would allow the public to surf at dawn and get in the water before sunset.
One thing is certain: Contest promoters, who now lease 21 days from the state at $1,100 per day, can expect some bad news, Tope said: “We’re going to be limiting the number of contests, but we don’t know which ones yet.”
The Trestles association, as a group, favors a total ban on contests at the beach, although many members say they would compromise with fewer contests.
“We want no contests whatsoever,” said Bob Bailey, 45, of Laguna Beach. “We are not going to get that, we know it and we are upset about it. [The state] wants 20 to 25 contests a year and we want a lot less. We feel that one contest should be sufficient.”
The state has long said that the contests were needed to raise revenue. Without those funds, surfers would probably not be able to continue to park free in the Trestles lot in south San Clemente, state officials said.
Bailey and others argue that the $1,100-a-day fee is too low and that the state could limit the number of contests and still make revenue by charging promoters more to rent the beach.
“The state has used this as kind of a bludgeon,” Bailey said. “They ask people if they want contests or not, but if they don’t have them, they’ll have to pay for parking. They could have one contest and charge a fee and be done with it.”
Still, association members shudder to think of one contest with thousands arriving at Trestles, a beach area named for the wooden railroad bridges over the wetlands at the mouth of San Mateo Canyon. It is not only an environmentally sensitive area, but there is no safe way to bring spectators across railroad tracks busy with daily MetroLink and Amtrak trains, Roy said.
“We have videos of small children crossing the tracks unaccompanied by adults,” said Roy, who has notified the Santa Fe Railroad and surfers association’s insurance companies of the situation. “That’s a very dangerous area. We have had several fatalities there in recent years.”
For his part, promoter Cassidy has won approval from the Irvine-based Assn. of Surfing Professionals, which conducts the world tour, to seek state permission to use Trestles. At their meeting in October, most professional surfers pushed to find a better venue than Huntington Beach for the annual world tour event in California.
Group spokeswoman Meg Bernardo said the professional association is aware of the controversy at Lowers, but the area produces such a good wave that it has become a desired venue.
For three years, the world tour has run its California event at Huntington Beach, where it was known as the U.S. Open. The event, which was owned by Prime Ticket sports television network, now Fox Television, not only drew hundreds of thousands of spectators, but included bands and dozens of booths.
Cassidy, former executive director of the world tour, is now a consultant to Communications Services International, a London-based worldwide television network. The network pushed out Fox after many participants and organizers wanted to move the event to a location with better waves.
“Huntington Beach is great for the crowd and the whole atmosphere,” Bernardo said. “But Trestles has the best wave around here and ultimately the [top professional surfers] want to be showcased in the best surf around.”
Roy, a former contestant and contest judge who lives in Cyprus Shore near President Nixon’s former Western White House, about a mile from the Lower Trestles area, said the main thrust of the local surfers association is to air all the issues and limit the number of contests.
“We are not anti-contest. We are not selfish locals. We just want to see a fair decision,” Roy said.
“The basic question is: Should an area in the public trust be basically handed over to commercial interests?” he said. “It has nothing to do with whether you surf in contests or watch contests. At Trestles, you are talking about one of the last stretches of coastline that is still pristine and not bound by a lot of asphalt.”
