Los Angeles Stories: Unleash the beach - but not for the Warner Bros PR at

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Los Angeles Stories: Unleash the beach - but not for the Warner Bros PR attack dogs
By John Hiscock
06 February 2005

The Independent

Anybody walking their dog around the streets near the beaches in Santa Monica nowadays is likely to be approached by ladies juggling clipboards, petitions and usually several dogs on leads.

Their aim - which, as a dog-owner myself I fully support - is to gather enough signatures to persuade the powers-that-be to relax their strict anti-dog laws - currently dogs are not allowed on any beaches - and to open up a section of the shore for residents to exercise their four-legged friends. The city council is mainly supportive, and we in the pro-dog Unleash the Beach movement were reasonably optimistic.

But we had not reckoned on the implacable opposition of the state parks superintendent, a Mr Ron Schafer, who is determined that no dogs will set paws on the beaches of Santa Monica. "Dogs are predators," he says firmly. "They grab birds." Admittedly my dog Harry likes to chase birds, but he has never caught one yet.

We dog-lovers are undaunted, however, and at a meeting the other night we learned that we have the support of an ally who we believe will be too powerful even for Mr Schafer. Bobby Shriver, a newly elected city councilman and also a dog-owner, is on our side. He is a man who has a certain amount of pull with the state authorities: he was recently appointed chairman of the State Parks Commission by his brother-in-law, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=608196