Lunada Bay Boys: California surfers take out class action lawsuit against local gang [View all]

[rpannier]

* I am curious if I can refer to the Lunada Bay Boys as thugs or does their race or economic status disqualify them? Some people dispute they can even be a gang. Read on...*

Lunada Bay, an out-of-the-way cove on the Palos Verdes peninsula south of Los Angeles, is one of the best big-wave surfing spots in California. In the shelter of its steep, semi-circular cliffs are a pristine beach and the promise of 20-foot winter swells. And, unlike so many other prime breaks on the US west coast, its waves are miraculously uncrowded.

That’s because anyone who wants to surf there must first get past the Lunada Bay Boys, an infamous local surfing clique known routinely to chase off outsiders with threats, harassment and, in some cases, violence. At the top of the dirt path that leads down to the beach, the Bay Boys once posted a sign that warned: “Unlocals will be hassled.”

snip

Contrary to the image of a typical LA gang, the Bay Boys are largely white and affluent, like their Lunada Bay neighbours. Among the 100 or more members of the group are firemen and school-teachers, said Vic Otten, the lawyer who filed the suit. “What’s really shocking,” he added, “is that in many cases these are men in their 50s and 60s.”

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Recently, the California Coastal Commission demanded local officials crack down on the gang for restricting access to what is supposedly a public beach, and urged them to either approve the clubhouse as a public space, or tear it down. The Palos Verdes authorities have been accused of spinelessness and even complicity in their attitude to the Bay Boys.

link:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/lunada-bay-boys-california-surfers-take-out-class-action-lawsuit-against-local-gang-a6966861.html

Yep.. mostly white, male, in their 40's, 50's and 60's. Their apologists claim they can't be gang, the police do nothing because they're not violent enough, the Lunada Bat Boys admit they harass people, included is at least one documented case of sexual harassment (in the story) and they harass children (a 10 year old boy)
Would be curious how faux spews, cnn and the rest of them would classify these overaged, alcoholic, miscreants?