Surfing boomed in the late '50s and '60s, and along with the boom came beachfront clashes with the law. It was inevitable. Surfers and swimmers don't mix well, surfers weren't especially welcome among coastal property owners, and it took years to figure out who was allowed in the water, and where, and when. Here is a brief and woefully incomplete chronology of surfing's early engagements with lifeguards, sheriffs, city councils, police and military.

 reports that the county is "set to impose stricter controls on surf riding in the coming weeks," after surfers repeatedly trespassed on private property on their way to the beach, and also for riding through surf zones populated with bathers. "We have no intention of discouraging surfing, which has become a popular sport, particularly among teenagers," a Malibu Sheriff's spokesman said. "However, this does not mean that youthful enthusiasm will be permitted to ignore property rights and endanger women and children in the area."

. Following an emergency City Council meeting, Newport Beach announces that surfing will be limited to four areas between June 1 and September 30.

 Malibu's Surfrider Beach is declared off-limits to swimmers. One Los Angeles County lifeguard estimates that, on a good weekend, as many as 400 surfers will be either on the beach or in the water at Malibu.

 After eight weeks of debate, Laguna Beach enacts a surfboard registration law—$5.00 per board. Beachfront property owners believe the new law doesn't go far enough. From the 

 "'They change their clothes right there in the street,' charged one owner of a $40,000 beachfront home. 'They curse if you complain. They have no respect'."

 Local councils for a half-dozen Sydney beachfront communities, in conjunction with Australia's Surf Life Saving Association, pass surfboard registration laws making it illegal to surf on a non-registered board. The annual fee is five shillings. Surfers caught without registration can be fined 10 pounds, and have their boards confiscated. "For a couple of summers," surf historian Murray Walding later wrote, "the beaches were like scenes from a Wild West movie, as clubbies, inspectors, and police swept along the sand. Surfers with unregistered boards would scatter—some into the waves, from where they would paddle around the headlands to neighboring beaches; others into the sandhill. Many would hurriedly bury their unregistered boards in the sand."

 To prevent "surf bums" from participating in the newly added surfing competition at the annual Hermosa Beach Holidays weekend in July, the Chamber of Commerce requires each entrant to submit a high school certificate indicating their grades are good enough to qualify them for school athletics.

 The Newport Beach City Council votes 6 to 1 against a proposal to ban swimming of any kind at the Wedge—bodysurfing included. "A full house of surfing enthusiasts," the 

 wrote, "including Superior Court Judge Robert Gardner, convinced most councilmen to vote against the prohibition. They argued that they should not be prevented from taking advantage of the hazardous, but good, surf at the Wedge."

 Representatives from five Sydney beachfront communities adopt a set of recommendations for tighter control and regulation of surfboard riding. One of the items: each community must keep a list of "serious and persistent offenders," so that their names can be circulated to nearby areas.

 Temperatures hit 105 during a Los Angeles heat wave. Swimmers flock to Santa Monica, surfers don't give way, lifeguards wade into the shallows and confiscate a total of 80 boards.

 reports that "seaside councils will further tighten controls on Sydney beaches this summer," and that surfers will be advised by local communities to "take out insurance of at least 5,000 pounds against accidents involving other surfers."

. The three-year-old United States Surfing Association, based in Redondo Beach, California, announces that it will form for a volunteer "Surf Patrol," designed in part to keep surfers in their designated areas, away from swimmers. Prospective members, USSA president Hoppy Swarts tells the 

, must be at least 16, skilled in swimming and first aid, and "of good moral character."

 Surfing is banned indefinitely at Los Angeles County's Dockweiler Beach, near Playa Del Rey, after local boardriders cut the lifeguard-set buoy lines marking off surfing and non-surfing zones.

 New York State Assemblyman Kenneth Browne cosponsors a bill requiring surfers to wear "a life-preserver, life-belt, or similar device." "The welfare of the public," Browne said in an interview, "is more important than any kicks for one guy."

 magazine reports that the Seacrest Hotel in Delray Beach, Florida, was "bitterly opposed" at a new ordinance opening up 200 feet of nearby beachfront to surfing, as hotel owners believed visiting surfers "would drive away wealthy regulars." But as Delray police chief James Grantham reported, "There hasn't been a single problem. If I were younger, I'd be out there myself." Up and down the East Coast, 

 continues, more areas have been opened to waveriders "to encourage the trade the surfers bring."

. After beachfront homeowners stage public anti-surfing protests, the town of Hull, near Boston, bans surfing completely. This is on top of an earlier law enacted by the Metropolitan District Commission District Commission banning the sport from all state-owned beaches in the Greater Boston region.

 magazine reports that, throughout Rhode Island's 40 miles of coastline, each of the following is a punishable offense: surfing without a swimmer's certificate, surfing without using the buddy system, surfing between one hour after sunrise and one hour before sunset, surfing when conditions are deemed unsafe by the Director of Natural Resources, surfing without a full two-piece wetsuit (from December 1 to March 31). Any single violation, the magazine continues, has a maximum fine of $100.

. Lower Trestles is technically off-limits to surfers, as it sits on the edge of Camp Pendleton Marine Base, but enforcement is spotty. On this particular day, however—likely because President Nixon is visiting his Western White House in nearby San Clemente—the military gets tough. During what 

 magazine calls "the most perfect Trestles of the year," two lone surfers trade waves as an 85-foot Coast Guard cutter edges into the lineup while a pair of Marine jeeps, red lights flashing, slowly move up and down the point. Megaphones blare from both directions. Escape was impossible, 

 reported. "They were going to eat it for sure."

YOU'VE BEEN SERVED: SURF LAWS AND LAWBREAKERS OF THE SIXTIES

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