After years of access debate, on Wednesday afternoon, California governor Gavin Newsom signed Bill 1680, which will open up the long-private Hollister ranch, home to some excellent and protected surf spots just north of Santa Barbara, to the public.
According to the LA Times:
“As Californians, respect and reverence for our beaches is in our DNA, so much so that we enshrined public beach access into our state constitution,” Newsom told the Times. “I’ve long fought to protect these public treasures for future generations and to ensure any person can experience their beauty. That won’t change now that I’m governor.”
Also according to the Times, the law declares that the public must be allowed to enter the ranch by land and access some of its 8.5 miles of shoreline by April 2022. Further access would be phased in under a comprehensive plan to be developed in the next two years. It is also now a crime, punishable by tens of thousands of dollars in fines, for any action by a person or group “to impede, delay, or otherwise obstruct the implementation of” public access to these coveted beaches and surf breaks in Santa Barbara County.
Looking back at the Ranch.
View: North Santa Barbara County Forecast
Assemblywoman Monique Limón (D-Santa Barbara), who authored the bill, said the legislation comes after almost 40 years of efforts to open this stretch of coastline to the public. “No matter your zip code, all Californians deserve a chance to enjoy our public parks and beaches,” she said. “Hollister Ranch is no exception.”
While the devil will lie in the details, of course, and the exact implementation has yet to be structured, here’s some history, as excerpted from Surfline’s 2000 Surfing A-Z entry:
“Colonel William Welles Hollister acquired his land circa the Civil War through Spanish land grants. The Bixby acquisition happened sometime around 1855 when that family, seeking a home for some newly purchased sheep, bought up a massive parcel and hunkered down. Since then, both families (and a small armada of real estate investors) have taken great steps to keep the area as they found it. Now divided into sprawling parcels, the land remains a place out of time — winding dirt roads along brightly colored cliffs and pastures connect the dots behind a 24-hour security gate. Surf aside, the place is downright gorgeous.
“At one point, the Hollisters intended for the area to be used for recreational purposes and, as such, granted a pass to the regional Sportsman Hunting Club in the late ’50s. That club was subsequently subdivided into smaller clubs, one of which, a surf club, was fronted by legendary area surfer/shaper Reynolds Yater, later best known for shaping the progressive “Yater Spoon” in the mid-’60s. The Santa Barbara Surf Club, as they were called, was the first to taste The Ranch’s waters, and they ruled the place for a decade or so.
“What Yater and his lucky pals discovered was a coastline absurdly abundant with quality points and reefs: Razor Blades, Drake’s, Little Drake’s, Utah, Rights and Lefts, St. Augustine, Lefts and Rights, Cojo Reef, Cojo Point, Perko’s and others. It wasn’t long before word was out on The Ranch’s gems, and enterprising surfers have ever since been scheming ways to access the area.”
As of 2022, according to the new bill, surfers may not need to scheme to access the area. Stay tuned for more as this story develops.
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