Even google didn't dare go up there: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.8512481,-122.4911711,3a,75y,...

Granted you can hike up Sunrise trail from the next exit but it's a tough hill for the elderly. Friend of mine got one of those hard to remove stickers put on their car for taking her mother up there.

If you ask the city they'll spin crap but confirm that it's open to public when pushed for an answer. If you drive up there guaranteed someone will confront you and the police will show up soon after.

Taxpayer funded gated community for the politically connected.

According to the law of the state of California, all beaches are public property. Of course, this gets a bit complicated when an individual owns the land in front of the beach. The people who buy houses in Malibu would, of course, prefer to have a private beach section. So they put up gates and hire security guards (illegally), block public parking spots (either physically or by putting up counterfeit "no parking" signs), etc. They've historically gotten away with it because the enforcement agency is underfunded and the enforcement process is expensive (a separate civil lawsuit for each offender). That may change soon though:

http://www.latimes.com/science/la-me-coastal-penalties-20140...

e.g. https://www.openstreetmap.org/directions?engine=graphhopper_...

So instead of blocking a tourist 'trail,' folks on my little goat-path of a street appealed to the city to assist with enforcement of existing parking regulations. They even erected some barriers to prevent blocking my garage. However the tourists still have the freedom of access while still making it workable enough for residents.

But blocking the street, breaking GPS or any other vigilante response wouldn't be appropriate because there are more interests in this town than just my own.

The key is to work together to balance interests in a way that is reasonably harmonious.

These Hollywood residents, blaming stuff such as a dog being squashed by a car on tourists are being a bit ridiculous. The dog was in the street. The fact that it was (allegedly) a tourist car that did it is irrelevant and is really just a cheap propaganda play. If the cars prevent fire trucks from access, that is something that could be handled at a city planning level and not by some residents that seem to think they are traffic engineers.

Back in 2007, my friends and I were at a 4 month co-op internship at Qualcomm. One weekend, we decided to drive up to LA from San Diego.

We drove as close as we could to the Hollywood sign, and got to a cul de sac where we saw a few cars parked, and a few families hiking down a hill from the sign.

We parked, and walked up the hill, noticing a sign that said it was illegal to hike to the sign. We questioned whether it was a good idea to ignore the sign, but seeing as whole families were ignoring it, we thought it would be fine.

We hiked for a few minutes, and then saw a security guard pull up in a car near our cars. I wasn't sure how legally I was parked, so we went back to avoid a ticket.

The guard ignores all the families, and targets us, asking us what we were doing hiking up there. We said we just wanted a picture, and he yelled at us about the sign. We said we didn't see it, and he called us idiots. He asked to see our IDs, at which point, my friend started talking back, saying no way. Being that we were Canadian, and on work visas, I didn't want to push my luck, being a minority too. I knew that if this guard called the cops, I'd be in a bit more trouble, and I thought I'd be in jeopardy of getting shipped back to Canada. It didn't help that the friend mouthing back wasn't a minority; I don't think he realized how scared we are in general of cops.

My friend kept mouthing off, saying that the guard had no right to talk to us like that, and we were going to leave. At this point, the guard says he's calling the cops, and that we have to deal with them.

At this point, I jumped in, asked the guard to calm down, and that I'll talk to him privately. He told me to tell my friend to watch his tone, and I pleaded with him to let us go, since I really didn't want to deal with the cops over something minor on account of us not being American. He copied down my info from my license, gave us a warning, and let us go.

Now, I did know my "rights", and I knew he had no grounds to detain us. But I didn't know those signs were fake, so I really thought we might be in trouble. Also, I didn't know if those rights applied to us as non-Americans. My friends said I was an idiot for giving my ID, and I agreed, but I just wanted to get out of there. I was 22 at the time too, so I probably was a bit more naive.

Reading this article brought back this memory, and now makes me realize how we were bamboozled. Live and learn I suppose.

It's definitely worrying that major tech companies are willing to alter their maps at the request of a few wealthy individuals.

I wish there was some company around which had a motto of "Don't be evil". I'm sure that company would have done the right thing.

You live in a place that exists because of and is sustained by tourism and yet you hate all the people who come there and spend money.

Here's an idea: move to a place that tourists don't like.

Oh, and there's also the Martins Beach case [2].

[1] : https://www.google.com/maps/place/Lombard+Street/@37.802189,...

[2] http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Billionaire-must-allow...

But, selfish and stupid works both ways. The homeowners near there can't deny people right of way on public streets. They can't put up fake signs/paint. This isn't right either. The best you can do is just try and keep the idiots off your own property.

If I lived there, I might just pave a few extra parking spaces into my property and charge $5 for first 30 minutes and $5 each additional 60 minutes thereafter. Buy lemonade, hiking maps, souvenir magnets, and postcards from the kiosk. 10%-off coupons for checking in on social media. Hey! Hey! Hey mister; hey lady! You wanna buy Hollywood Sign t-shirt? Hollywood Sign keychain fob? How about shopped photo with your name in place of the real sign? Don't just take selfies! Everybody takes selfies! Buy something no one else has; buy this volume-printed diorama of the sign and surrounding park, signed by the artist! Limited edition!

Whenever I have been a tourist, the single best way to make me want to leave and never return is to subject me to a continuous barrage of sales pitches for useless attraction-related crap. Example: every square centimeter of Disney World. That's like the ultimate goal of merchandising, when it all sort of collapses into this state where everything becomes an advertisement for itself, and everything you buy subtly encourages you to buy more, or maybe just put all your cash in a paper envelope and deposit it into a slot under the Walt and Mickey statue.

That's how you ruin an attraction. You don't just make it secret and exclusive; that only makes people want it more. Instead, you relentlessly try to squeeze every last drop of money out of it. If you really want the people to stop coming, your Holy Grail is the online review that says, "Not worth the $10 parking space in some guy's front yard. Locals aggressively sell touristy crap, and the sign itself seems kind of cheap and pathetic from up close."

Of course, the downside is that unless you have some sort of "identify friend or foe" system in place, you get a dozen sales pitches every time you walk from your own driveway to your own house.

Samizdat internet ... even literally, according to Britannica: '(from Russian sam, “self,” and izdatelstvo, “publishing”)'

Uhm, Google Maps do this all the time if there is no route to the place you selected. I'd say I see it every time I use the routing feature by hand or by entering GPS coordinates, i.e. not when I write an address down.

Whats the difference between that homeowner saying "hey i am going to break your kneecaps" vs "hey I have more money than you and am going to destroy your life with legal action." - which is what he was implying in his email

http://www.nj.com/monmouth/index.ssf/2015/10/deal_reportedly...

The real insult here is that the town had recently accepted federal funds ($40mm) to widen and improve the beach, so blocking access seemed a little unfair if not illegal. Additionally most of the houses near the beach are only occupied in the summer season. So really, who is a "resident" when many are really only there in the summer?

My initial reaction was how unreasonable it was for the developers to build such a fence to keep people out of their development. Then I noticed that there are no gaps in the fence and, on doing some research, found out that the fence is there to keep the house owners off of the beach!

I'd be a bit annoyed if I spent £1M on a house overlooking a lovely beach only to find that I'd have to walk/drive 8km or so to the other side of the fence...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Mexico#Article...

So how does this work in relation to the de facto apartheid we have in Mexico, thanks to resorts? Same thing: the people with money make their own rules.

Edit: Never mind, upon further investigation, it seems that the public property is not defined by the constitution, but by other laws, and individuals can obtain certain temporary concessions to use it which roughly corresponds to leasing the land from the government:

http://mexicolaw.com/Lawinfo30.htm

http://www.eloscabos.gob.mx/pdf/lyr/reglamento-de-acceso-a-p...

This still does end up furthering the de facto apartheid we have in Mexico, however.

Apparently the coastline of the SF Bay does not count under that law. So for example the area from the Golden Gate Bridge down to San Jose, back up to Richmond, over to Larkspur and down back to the Golden Gate bridge has many places on the water that are not public.

http://www.ct.gov/deep/cwp/view.asp?A=2705&Q=323792

Connecticut's shore belongs to the people--not just in terms of our environmental and cultural heritage, but in a specific legal sense as well. Under the common law public trust doctrine, a body of law dating back to Roman times, all coastal states as sovereigns hold the submerged lands and waters waterward of the mean high water line in trust for the public. The general public may freely use these lands and waters, whether they are beach, rocky shore, or open water, for traditional public trust uses such as fishing, shellfishing, boating, sunbathing, or simply walking along the beach. In Connecticut, a line of state Supreme Court cases dating back to the earliest days of the republic confirm that private ownership ends at mean high water line, and that the state holds title to the lands waterward of mean high water, subject to the private rights of littoral or riparian access.

The public trust area comprises submerged lands and waters waterward of the mean high water line in tidal coastal, or navigable waters of the state of Connecticut. On the ground, the public trust area extends from the water up to a prominent wrack line, debris line, or water mark. In general, if an area is regularly wet by the tides, you are probably safe to assume that it is in the public trust. The public trust area is also sometimes referred to as tidelands, and is defined as "public beach" by the Connecticut Coastal Management Act, C.G.S. 22a-93(6).

"Public rights include fishing, boating, hunting, bathing, taking shellfish, gathering seaweed, cutting sedge, and of passing and repassing. . ." Orange v. Resnick, 94 Conn. 573 (1920).

"It is settled in Connecticut that the public has the right to boat, hunt, and fish on the navigable waters of the state." State v. Brennan, 3 Conn. Cir. 413 (1965). The public has the right to fish and shellfish over submerged private lands, Peck v. Lockwood, 5 Day 22 (1811).

The public has the right to pass and repass in navigable rivers, Adams v. Pease 2 Conn. 481 (1818) .

The public may gather seaweed between ordinary high water and low water, Chapman v. Kimball 9 Day 38 (1831).

In almost every case, private property ends, and public trust property begins, at the mean high water line (often referred to as "high water mark" in court decisions). Mean high water is the average of high tides over a defined period, and its elevation can be obtained from standard references, including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Tidal Flood Profile charts.

The public owns up to "high water mark," Simons v. French, 25 Conn. 346 (1856).

Title of riparian proprietor terminates at ordinary high water mark, Mather v. Chapman, 40 Conn. 382 (1873).

"High water mark" = "mean high water mark" = "ordinary high water mark." Private ownership of submerged lands is possible, only when basins are dredged from upland, or from inland, non-navigable waters. Michalczo v. Woodmont, 175 Conn. 535 (1978).

The adjacent landowner has the exclusive riparian or littoral right of access to navigable water. This does not mean that the owner can exclude others from the adjacent waters, but that only the owner may get to the water from his or her upland, as by constructing a dock or other structures where appropriate and appropriately authorized. In terms of access, navigable waters are equivalent to a public road, and a dock serves the same purpose as a private driveway. A littoral landowner may not exclude the public from lawful uses of the public trust area, just as an upland owner cannot exclude the public from driving or walking on the street in front of his or her house. Of course, nuisance behavior in the public trust, such as littering, intoxication, etc. would constitute a breach of the peace, just as if done by neighbors on adjacent upland property.

It really does seem like there is an opportunity here that isn't being exploited though. Why doesn't someone start running tours up there? A couple of buses wouldn't cause a problem and there's money to be made from this.

Angry!

https://www.google.com/mapmaker

The shuttle idea is probably the best bet at the moment and the way it should be - the community and local gov't working together to solve issues rather than being petty, vindictive and somehow getting their way by having it changed on Google Maps as if it were a top secret military base and not just a pain in the ass to park.

"Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded."

https://www.facebook.com/East-Lothian-Countryside-Ranger-Ser...