Tourist Mackenzie Effing found a sliver of sand just south of Main Beach in Laguna Beach on a recent day, the waves inching up toward her towels and chairs as the tide came in.
Behind her, in front of Hotel Laguna, was a section of beach with a small berm built up, more than a dozen signs reading “Laguna Beach Club” and white lounge chairs set out.
“I always assumed they were for guests that stayed there, but every time we come in the last six years – and we come a couple times a year — it’s always empty,” said Effing, visiting from Arizona.
The California Coastal Commission has sent Hotel Laguna operators “notice of violation” letter about the set up on the beach, warning that building up a sand berm, putting up signage and empty lounge chairs creates an illusion of a private beach on areas of public land, and without proper permitting is a violation of the California Coastal Act, a law passed in 1976 that aims to protect California’s public beaches.
As sea levels rise and beaches erode, ocean waves and tides continue to shrink beaches, and the high tide line is moving inland. Both private property owners and the public are losing beach space.
“It is more and more critical that the public can walk along the mean high tide line,” said Andrew Willis, enforcement staff council for the Coastal Commission. “We are losing one of our greatest public parks with sea-level rise, so we need to make sure the public can access every inch of it we can protect.”
Everything inland of the mean high tide line can be considered private, but as beaches erode and sea levels rise, that line becomes a moving target, Willis said.
On Friday, May 17, Laguna Beach Mayor Alex Rounaghi visited the hotel, trying to determine what was going on with public beach access after hearing from community members.
As he approached a staff member dressed in black pants and a shirt who appeared to be tending to the sand area, a couple visiting from Norway tightroped between the incoming tide and the small berm, assuming they didn’t have access to walk on that area of sand.
Rounaghi asked the apparent hotel employee what the signs were doing there and asked that they be removed, but the man declined.
“He said people are still allowed to be here,” Rounaghi said of the response he received. “I told him, ‘Why are all the signs up? The coast belongs to everyone.”
Rounaghi then told the couple and others nearby about the public access.
Ruth Dolan, who identified herself as the manager of Larson, the hotel’s restaurant, directed questions to Chad St. John, the hotel’s general manager, but did not provide contact information, saying he was out of town and couldn’t be reached.
Further efforts to contact St. John went unanswered.
The Coastal Commission’s letter was addressed to three parties, including the landowner, who said he knew nothing about the letter, and a representative of an investor group that previously operated the hotel, who said in a phone message he is no longer involved with the group. It is unclear if the letter was routed to the correct party.
The California Coastal Commission provides information online on how to tell where the mean high tide line is, but also there are visuals people can use – basically, unless it’s an extreme high tide, they can look for wet sand or a “wrack line,” where seaweed or driftwood lines the high tide line, Willis said.
“The problem is, sometimes property owners will rake it out and it becomes more difficult to tell where the line is,” he said. “It’s our objective to help the public understand the rights and when we know there’s interference with those rights, we use our enforcement tools to address that interference.”
The commission sent its latest letter to Hotel Laguna operators on May 8 saying it had confirmed reports of “construction and maintaining of a berm on the sand beach adjacent to the hotel in an apparent attempt to delineate its property line, and installation of signage along the subject berm, both of which unlawfully discourage public access to public trust lands seaward and down coast of this area without a requisite coastal development permit.”
Because of a historical pattern of similar alleged Coastal Act violations associated with the site, officials said the commission’s staff is now also considering options for a formal enforcement action to address the repeated violations.
In early 2024, the commission staff also sent a letter to the city about the hotel’s presence on the beach, saying there had been allegations of hotel personnel telling members of the public walking along the water’s edge that they were trespassing on private property.
Hotel Laguna operators have met multiple times with commission staff in recent years, officials said, and previously agreed to remove signage and other obstructions from the sandy beach.
Commission enforcement staff previously agreed to provide Hotel Laguna with guidance on adequate signage that would help identify public beach and private property at the site, installation of which would require a permit.
“However, the subject signage currently installed by Hotel Laguna does not resemble or have the intended effect of the example provided by commission enforcement staff, nor has commission staff received a (coastal development permit) application for the existing signage or sand berm,” the commission staff said in its latest letter.
Signs dotting the sand on a recent day read “Laguna Beach Club” on one side and “No Alcohol Permitted Past This Point” on the other, and “makes no reference to adjacent public trust lands available for public use,” the letter said.
Willis said the commission receives frequent complaints from the public about the Hotel Laguna’s actions.
“From the public’s response, the public is using this beach – maybe they want to walk down the coast and this is blocking their access,” he said. “It’s important for us to address this issue. The public has expressed an interest in this, so it’s an important issue for us.”
In general, if there is no compliance, items obstructing public access can be removed through a cease and desist order, or there can be monetary penalties, which can reach $11,250 a day, though Willis said this particular case is ongoing and a course of action has not been determined.
He said the deadline for the hotel to confirm that the structures and materials have been removed is May 23.