Hacker News Reader

Comment by fatjokes | Hacker News Reader

Tell me that the homeowners who put up the misleading signs get fined, preferably heavily, knowing how wealthy those homeowners likely are.

View on HN

Probably not. It's INTENDED to be an exclusive neighborhood. The city government is probably rigged to maximum effectiveness at protecting the interests of the wealthy and exclusive. So doing things that impede the rabble is probably rewarded, not punished.

100% Correct -- the reality here is that the city council is likely to respond to the wealthy tax payers. The last thing the city wants is a mass exodus of the wealthy on the hunt for more private beach property.

> more private beach property

Which would be where exactly?

Not anywhere in the state of California, that's for sure.

"Keep your ugly, fucking, gold-bricking ass out of my beach community, Lebowski!"

While we are on movie quotes, on similar lines from Supertroopers:

College Boy 2: No, man, I'm just saying... I'm sayin', if-if you own beachfront property, right, do you own, like, the sand and the water?

College Boy 3: Nobody owns the water. God owns - it's God's water.

Haha, golden, classic line! Came here to post it, came into my head seconds after reading the article :)

> It's INTENDED to be an exclusive neighborhood.

Since when? And I mean that in a "can you elaborate on how that happened", not a sarcastic way.

My only knowledge of the history of Malibu comes from Rob Lowe's autobiography - he moved there as a young teenager / pre-teen (11-13 I think) with a slightly hippy mother who was looking for cleaner air than Ohio had to offer. Anyway, he describes 70s/80s Malibu as very different from what it is today, much more laid back, much less rich-people-focused (although even back then he had, as an example, Martin Sheen + family as neighbors), worth noting that when Lowe moved his family were probably somewhere between working and middle class, and they fitted in fine.

It seems easy to understand why Malibu could become so expensive and lived in by only super-rich and celebrities - that's basic economics of supply and demand - but at what point, and why, did it get to a point where you say "it's INTENDED to be an exclusive neighborhood"?

It's just a natural progression. I'm sure if you go just a bit further up the coast and away from "the money" of Los Angeles you will find laid back coastal communities.

Isn't there a free speech issue here? Can't they put up signs proclaiming whatever they want on their own property?. Yes, I am aware that there are some specific public-safety oriented exceptions, like impersonating police, but I don't see that here. Scumbag? Yes, but it absolutely should not be illegal.

Isn't this very close to impersonating police? Impersonating the government?

Google says yes, in certain cases: "http://blog.lawinfo.com/2011/03/23/impersonating-a-governmen...

That's talking about impersonating a government _employee_.

I don't know... Some of those signs look like they are government signs, and that could be a public safety issue.

Fraud is typically not protected by free speech rights. For example, if you put up a fraudulent "No Parking" sign on your property so that people wouldn't park on the curb next to your house, that would be illegal even if it were on your property.

Public beaches and their required-to-be-public access points presumably aren't private property, and I'd bet that those 'no parking' signs are on public property as well, given that the parking spaces themselves are apparently public.

The no parking sign is clearly in the middle of a patch of bushes. Willing to be bet they figured out exactly what the city easement is and positioned accordingly.

I think you may be attributing too much effort in finding and toeing the legal boundaries, but yeah, you definitely have a point about the bushes :)

This argument makes no sense. Why not paint the curb in front of your house red or yellow to discourage parking, then? Why not pop a few "free speech" stop signs on the road as part of a private traffic-calming initiative? Why not leave it up to the informed motorist to figure out whether the curb is painted red for a safety reason or merely because the homeowner is a jackass?

Trying to enforce one's will over public property and public behavior with misleading, official-looking signs is scarcely any better than impersonating a police officer for the same effect--it's just a matter of degree.

Well, while I agree with the spirit of what your saying, 100%, I do disagree with his argument not making sense.

Everything you're suggesting would be illegal, because the person would be defacing public property. There's a clear line between repainting a city owned curb or a posting a sign on a city owned streetside.

It's not -exactly- the same as painting a curb on your own property, or putting a sign on your own lawn.

Again. I agree that these Malibu owners are being crappy, but there's a difference.

Point taken, the city usually owns the curb, I think... but has a painted curb been defaced, or merely weatherproofed in a colorful, free-expression sort of way? On the other hand, stop signs and the like tend to be stuck into private property.

There's definitely some funny business when it comes to signs and sidewalks; e.g., the landowner owns the sidewalk, but is required to keep it clear and level, not prohibit the public walking on it, not turn it into a flowerbed, etc.

The whole problem is finding out exactly where the property line is. There is a whole army of professionals that do that, full time -- surveyors. And there are databases of lots and zones that local governments maintain (some even behind pay walls). So finding out where exactly "private" stops and "public" begins is not that simple.

The issue might not be that big in areas where nobody cares about land that much, but in NY, LA, or other big city, where the cost of land is so high, every inch counts.

So you paint the curb red and install a fake fire hydrant. Is the curb yours or not? I don't know. Can you "impersonate" a fire hydrant to stop others from parking in front of your house? Not sure. It seems like it would be illegal. Kind of like putting a fake "highway entrance" green sign on the side of your house. It is your property but if it start directing traffic into your neighbor's pool you might just get fined or sued. At least a law will quickly be created to deal with the issue.

The law is not just what is written, is it what is commonly practiced as well. So says the great and terrible philosopher Carl Schmitt, and he makes sense.

These fake signs try to change common practice; they are subverting the law and are quite successful at it. They are black hat hackers, in a way.

I cannot see why you would be supporting this scumbaggery.

I don't support it, per say, but it's a bit like how you don't support free speech for all unless you support free speech for nero-nazis and other groups you find personally offensive.

Functional speech can be regulated. And yes, it should be illegal to put up signs purporting to be official.

The section mentioned in the misleading sign isn't even the right section. 602(n) appears to deal with motor vehicles?...

602(n) "Driving any vehicle, as defined in Section 670 of the Vehicle Code, upon real property belonging to, or lawfully occupied by, another and known not to be open to the general public, without the consent of the owner, the owner’s agent, or the person in lawful possession."

Seems pretty simple. Search local laws for "not open to the general public", copy, paste, boom.

So, it's like Copyright trolls, but for property

Reply on news.ycombinator.com