6 • June 5 - 18, 2015 • The Log
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Letters/Online Comments
Reader has a bone to pick with assemblyman
Are they bringing water in addition to beer?
Re: Bud Light’s #UpForWhatever comes to Avalon: party-or-liabili- ty (May 22 issue). Avalon is in severe water rationing mode. But I suppose if these folks just drink beer all weekend and bathe in the ocean, it shouldn’t have too much of an impact. Last line of the article is pretty funny though: “Catalina was no stranger to spontaneous fun because of its bison population”... Huh??
SimpleTourist Submitted on
TheLog.com
More thoughts on Avalon event
Re: Bud Light’s #UpForWhatever comes to Avalon: party-or-liabili- ty (May 22 issue). I hope Avalon makes a lot of money for this inconvenience.
David Mattie Submitted on The Log’s Facebook page
Fast Facts
Channel Islands Harbor is celebrating its 50th anniversary this month. While The Log’s coverage of this mile- stone focuses on the harbor’s boating and fishing elements, did you know Channel Islands Harbor has a strong film connection despite being about 66 miles away from the Hollywood sign? Clark Gable, star of films such as “Gone With the Wind”, once
lived at Channel Islands Harbor. Rudolph Valentino, one of the biggest stars of the silent film era, spent time living within walking distance of the harbor’s mouth as “The Sheik” was filmed nearby in 1921. A website claims Valentino’s Oxnard residence is haunted with his spirit.
Sources: KCET,
visitoxnard.com,
weirdca.com
Re: State Assembly unanimously approves PFD bill (May 22 issue). Typical of government regula- tions – their brains (if they have any) are seldom in gear when dreaming them up. My new assemblyman wrote a bill to remove cameras at intersections because there have been a few rear end collisions [by inattentive people following too close]. How many people have been T-Boned by people running red lights, resulting in death or serious injuries – and no witnesses to prove fault?
Wayne Ford Submitted on
TheLog.com
Best of luck, fair winds and following seas
Re: Frank Ursitti is ready to guide H&M Landing into the future (May 22 issue). Keep up the great tradition Frank. Best to the “reel guy” – across the room too.
Tom San Diego Submitted on
TheLog.com
Can I withhold slip fees during a dispute with my marina?
By David Weil, Esq. Q
My boat was damaged in its slip during a storm last winter, when a cleat pulled out of the dock and my remaining tie up line parted under the resulting strain. Several months before the storm, I advised the mari- na manager that the dock cleat was loose and I was concerned that it might pull out of the dock in bad weather. I contin- ued to complain, but he never sent anyone down to repair it. After the storm, I asked the marina to repair my boat, but so far they have refused. I decided, therefore, to withhold my slip fee payments, but now they are threatening to evict me. I have heard that the California Floating Home Residency Law may protect me from this kind of intimidation by the marina, since I live aboard my boat. What are my options?
“option” is to pay his slip fee or leave the marina. We receive a lot of very com- pelling questions from readers about marina evictions, but the law is almost entirely on the side of the marina. Boat owners often equate a
A
marina tenancy with a resi- dential tenancy for an apart- ment or a house, which would include a variety of laws designed to protect a tenant. Unfortunately, this is not a valid comparison, even if the owner lives aboard the boat. A marina tenant is not renting a home at the marina. The ten- ant is instead renting a patch of water to store a boat, and the tenancy is more accurately compared to the rental of a warehouse space or public storage unit. The reader indicated that
There is a lot going on with this question, but the reader’s only
he lives aboard his boat and he asked about California’s Floating Home Residency Law. This law does offer some pro- tection to marina tenants, but only if the boat qualifies as a Floating Home under the defi- nitions set forth in the law. Among other very strict requirements, a “Floating Home” must have a perma- nent shoreside sewer connec- tion and continuous water and power service. This means that it must have pipes and permanent electrical power rather than hoses and a plug- in shore-power cord. Most of these homes are in Sausalito — and, outside of that town, very few boats qualify as “Floating Homes.” This case is more compli- cated than most marina ques- tions, because we must look to the principles of maritime law to address the damage to the boat. In the end, however, the marina still wins because a boat owner must take respon- sibility for safely mooring his or her boat. Maritime law imposes a
long list of duties upon a ves- sel owner that may not be del- egated to anyone else. One of these “non-delegable” duties is the duty to tie up your boat properly. The “proper” way to tie up a boat will vary depend- ing on the circumstances, but there is no circumstance that would justify the securing of a boat’s only bow line to a cleat that is known to have a prob- lem. The analysis may be dif- ferent if the damage is caused by a hidden defect, such as a rotten piling that appeared to be sound. But here, the boat owner was aware of the prob- lem for several months before the incident. The boat owner in this case
is now facing an eviction, and he feels that the eviction amounts to a form of unlawful intimidation. Under California law, a landlord is prohibited from evicting a tenant in retal- iation for the tenant’s exercise of some legal right. Some courts have held that this pro- tection is not limited to resi- dential tenancies, and as such
On Board With Johnson by J.R. Johnson See ATTORNEY page 7
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