Dispute May Spike a Beach Tradition

The fate of next month’s venerable Manhattan Beach Open volleyball tournament is hanging in the balance, pending a court hearing early next week.

Officials from the Assn. of Volleyball Professionals, which sponsors the popular seaside event, say they will be in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday to see whether a judge upholds a temporary restraining order preventing the organization from selling tickets to the event.

The association had threatened to pull out from the Manhattan Beach Open and its other area tournaments if it could not raise revenue by selling tickets for all its seats. In previous years, it has charged for a limited number of seats.

The restraining order was granted Thursday by Judge Robert O’Brien on behalf of the South Bay Coastal Alliance, which maintained that the tournament blocks public beach access. But the nonprofit group must come up with a $50,000 bond by Tuesday’s hearing--something that it had yet to do late Friday.

“We’re working on it,” said the group’s attorney, Frank Angel.

If the group is unable to raise the money, Angel said, it will ask the judge to either extend its deadline or reduce the amount of the bond.

“If they come up with money, or the judge reduces it, we have to go to another site,” the volleyball association’s chief operating officer, Lou Monk, said late Friday.

Just in case, Monk said, the association has selected several alternative sites for the three-day event, although he declined to say where they are.

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If the volleyball tournament is forced to move, its supporters say, it would mark a sad chapter for an event that has become synonymous with Manhattan Beach.

“The Manhattan Beach Open belongs to the city of Manhattan Beach,” Mayor Joan Jones said Friday. “It’s really out of our hands at this point.”

Called the Wimbledon of the sand, the event is largely credited with transforming beach volleyball from a pickup game to an Olympic sport.

Monk said his organization had been working with city officials for 18 months to reach an agreement on selling tickets, only to have the plan rejected first by the state Coastal Commission earlier this month, then by the Superior Court judge.

“It’s very sad. It’s where beach volleyball was started,” Monk said.