Californians -is this true ?

Attorneys and environmentalists have spent years outraged that Khosla shut off public access to Martin’s Beach, a beloved cove near Half Moon Bay, Calif., after he bought the land around it in 2008.

In 2008, Sun Microsystems co-founder and wealthy VC Vinod Khosla bought a beachfront property in California's Half Moon Bay for $37.5 million.

He promptly installed a locked gate and security guards on the only road that allowed access to the beach, barring the public from a popular hang-out spot for surfers, fishermen and picnickers, Romney reports.

Cliffs on either side block off this spot, known as Martin's Beach, so the road on what became Khosla's property was the only way in, unless you swim there.

He shouldn't be able to do that. Owners of beachfront property are required by California law to allow the public to get to the beach.

Naturally, lawsuits ensued and for one of them Khosla just came out the winner when a San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Gerald Buchwald ruled in his favor.

The judge ruled that because the land was part of a land grant in the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (upheld in 1859 by the U.S. Supreme Court), the land is exempt from the beach access state law.

The judge's logic? The land grant came before the California state constitution.

The people suing Khosla are going to appeal, but if this ruling stands, there could be all sorts of other wealthy landowners in California wondering if they can use the same rule to block the public from other beaches, too.

Mark Massara, an attorney for the nonprofit Surfrider Foundation, which has a separate lawsuit pending against Khosla, has asked the California Attorney General?s office to step in. He told the LA Times:

?It gets really absurd,? he said. ?Why not exempt all modern law? from applying to coastal rancho properties.

Massara used a different argument for Surfrider's lawsuit. He says Khosla needed to get a permit from the Coastal Commission to install that locked gate. As part of the suit, Khosla tried to get the judge simply to declare that he didn't have to allow the public to access Martin's Beach, but the judge refused to rule on that until Khosla got the permit. According Massara, Khosla still hasn't applied for a permit.

?If Khosla doesn?t agree with the Coastal Commission?s rules then he is free to sue the Coastal Commission. But if you don?t apply for a permit at all, then you?re just a violator,? Massara said.

The representative of the holding companies was made aware of the existing public access associated with the property prior to purchase of the property, and was also informed that closing or deterring access would be an activity that required a development permit from the County and Coastal Commission. (We learned this through discovery on our lawsuit...see video)



But, as powerful people are sometimes wont to do, the law was ignored and access was closed without benefit of a permit. Doubtlessly he reckoned that the only way that he would have to answer to these actions and forced to address this closure was through an enforcement action or a lawsuit brought against him.

Mr. Khosla was approached early on by Surfrider Foundation in hopes that the closure could be discussed and an amicable resolution to restore access could be reached, but alas Mr. Khosla was not responsive to this approach. Instead, he relied on his lawyers to respond, and the response more or less said that the court would need to decide. So Surfrider took him to task and sued for violation of the Coastal Act.