Malibu man petitions California Coastal Commission for 12-mile Locals-Only maritime exclusion zone

Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat

MALIBU, CALIFORNIA — In what legal scholars are calling the most significant maritime boundary dispute since the War of Jenkins’s Ear, a Malibu surfer known locally as “Bro-seidon” formally petitioned the California Coastal Commission this week to designate the entire Pacific Ocean as restricted kook-free territory, following an incident in which a 43-year-old tourist from Fresno successfully stood up on a foam board for approximately four seconds.

The Incident That Shook First Point

The tourist, identified in commission documents only as “Gerald,” rented a soft-top board from a shop on Pacific Coast Highway, paddled into the lineup at First Point Malibu, and executed what eyewitnesses described as “an objectively successful pop-up” before toppling into the whitewater. The maneuver, lasting somewhere between three and seven seconds depending on which local you ask, sent shockwaves through the Malibu surf community still reverberating three days later.

“The ocean was compromised,” said Bro-seidon, whose California driver’s license identifies him as Randall Kowalski, 47. “We had a system. Kooks fall down immediately. That is the natural order. This Gerald character just stood there. For seconds. Plural. I have not been able to sleep.”

The petition, running to forty-seven pages including seventeen appendices, requests that the Commission establish a Certified Local Surfer Only maritime exclusion zone extending from the high tide mark at First Point to twelve nautical miles offshore. The proposed zone would be enforced by a volunteer armada of longboarders armed with pool noodles and righteous indignation.

A Growing Crisis Along the Southern California Coast

Kowalski’s petition arrives at a moment of heightened anxiety in Southern California surfing, where the pandemic-era surf boom sent millions of new participants into lineups that veterans had spent decades carefully curating through aggressive paddling, strategic intimidation, and the ancient art of pretending not to see someone drowning if they are wearing a rental wetsuit.

Global surfing participation now exceeds 35 million people according to industry data tracked by Surfer Today, a figure Kowalski called “apocalyptic” and “frankly worse than climate change, which at least has the decency to happen slowly.”

The Southern California Authentic Surfing Heritage Commission, an organization founded by Kowalski in 2019 with a current membership of one, has proposed a comprehensive seven-tier ocean access licensing system. Under the proposal, beginners would be required to pass a written examination covering the Gerry Lopez filmography, demonstrate knowledge of at least three derogatory terms for tourists, and produce documentation proving they have surfed for a minimum of twelve years before being permitted to paddle past the pier.

“I am not unreasonable,” Kowalski said at a press conference held in the parking lot of a surf shop where he works part-time. “I would accept eleven years. But I am not going below ten.”

Officials Respond With Cautious Enthusiasm

A California Coastal Commission spokesperson told reporters the petition would receive full consideration, adding that the Commission takes seriously all matters pertaining to coastal resource protection, and that if one squinted sufficiently, one could perhaps argue that the lineup at First Point constitutes a coastal resource in need of protection from Gerald and his family.

Dr. Patricia Vasquez, Professor of Aquatic Territorial Psychology at the University of Southern California’s Department of Surf Studies, described Kowalski’s condition as “lineup localism disorder,” affecting an estimated 40 percent of California surfers who have been surfing for more than eight years and own at least three boards they describe as vintage.

“The foam board represents an existential threat,” Dr. Vasquez explained. “It is too buoyant, too forgiving, and available for rent at nineteen dollars an hour, which means the barrier to entry that locals have spent their entire adult lives constructing can be dissolved by a credit card and forty-five minutes of YouTube tutorials. When Gerald stood up, he did not merely catch a wave. He committed an act of class warfare.”

The surf media outlet The Inertia reported earlier this year that soft-top board sales now account for a majority of beginner board purchases in the United States, driven by their safety profile and the widespread recognition that learning on a foam board is simply better pedagogy than the traditional Southern California method of handing a beginner a 6’2″ thruster and watching them get destroyed in the shorebreak for three hours while locals laugh from the pier.

Gerald Speaks

Gerald, reached by phone at his home in Fresno, said he had been entirely unaware the incident caused controversy.

“I thought it went reasonably well,” he said. “I did fall immediately. My wife took a video but it is mostly just water.”

Asked whether he planned to surf again, Gerald confirmed he and his family had booked a return trip to Malibu for August, that his two children aged nine and twelve were also interested in trying, and that he had purchased a foam board of his own online for one hundred and forty-seven dollars including shipping.

Kowalski, informed of this development during a follow-up interview in the same parking lot, sat in silence for a long moment before quietly asking the reporter to leave.

What Happens Next

Legal experts say the petition faces long odds, primarily because the Pacific Ocean is internationally recognized as a navigable waterway not subject to local surf etiquette, a point Kowalski dismissed as “exactly the kind of thing a kook lawyer would argue.”

The Coastal Commission will review the petition at its September meeting. Kowalski has formally requested that Gerald be notified and required to attend in person. “I want him to look me in the eye,” Kowalski said. “And then I want the Commission to declare him a protected navigational hazard. Like a sea lion, but with less natural grace and no valid reason to be out there.”

Gerald said he probably could not make September due to a work commitment but that he wished everyone involved well and that the ocean had been really beautiful. “I am glad it is there,” he said. Kowalski declined further comment.

More Southern California surf satire at The London Prat and Bohiney Magazine.

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SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/malibu-surfer-petitions-to-ban-kooks-from-pacific-ocean/