Letters to the Editor
Good news: The City now owns the beaches from the County
Finally, our Marine Safety Department will guard the beaches in South Laguna and Public Works will take care of assessing needed improvements and day-to-day maintenance of trails and stairways from Coast Highway because now the city owns the beaches and access ways.
I like Aliso Beach & Canyon because it has the only café on the sand, the Lost Pier Cafe. Fourteen hundred feet east, beyond Aliso Beach’s handy parking lot is The Ranch, complete with its deck seating and inside restaurant and bar, with an exceptional view, the nine-hole golf course and hotel which has a great pool and jacuzzi. The Ranch even has a store.
If you are at Aliso Beach and look southeast, up on top of the hill, 400 feet high, sits the Richard Halliburton house built in the late 1930s of concrete. The three-bedroom house was designed and built by William Alexander; a friend and his lover, secretary and ghostwriter Paul Mooney, reportedly shared the house with Halliburton, who traveled the earth in the 1920s and 1930s writing books, articles for newspapers and magazines and giving lectures about his world travels.
I like West Street, the international LGBTQ-friendly beach which is actually adjacent to the Camel Point Drive public access way. It has a lifeguard tower in the summer, volleyball courts and restrooms and is one of Laguna’s largest expanses of sand.
The surf along these beaches is considered a shore break which crashes down and caused me to get a dislocated arm years ago. Be careful.
Thousand Steps is my third favorite beach. Its isolation is what I think people like, but the lack of parking and popularity is a nightmare for nearby residents. It is sometimes called Ninth Street Beach and the next beach south…is famous for summer sunbathing.
Roger Carter
Laguna Beach