They Make Unfriendly Waves for Outsiders : Beaches: Locals employ vandalism and intimidation to discourage strangers from using Palos Verdes Estates’ shores, especially Lunada Bay.

George, a 42-year-old surfer from Torrance, compares the surfers at Lunada Bay in Palos Verdes Estates to a street gang--staking out turf, terrorizing the innocent, trashing private property.

“Typical punk behavior,” he says.

Erick, a surfer from Manhattan Beach, likens the Lunada Bay situation to a “territoriality-type of thing, like an animal marking its place.”

John, another surfer from Manhattan Beach, says it boils down to a group of selfish rich kids out to make trouble.

“It’s the spoiled Palos Verdes guy with no brains,” John says.

Summer’s here and surfers again are swarming to Southern California beaches, but there is one place many surfers say they have no intention of visiting--Lunada Bay.

In a sport with a long history of turf wars, Lunada Bay has become known for being especially inhospitable to outsiders seeking to surf on waves the local youths have come to consider a birthright. Many surfers agree that Lunada Bay is the worst place on the peninsula, and perhaps in all the Los Angeles area, for hassling wave-seeking strangers--pelting them with rocks or vandalizing their cars.

The reputation is so widespread that a T-shirt sold in local surf shops and emblazoned with a map of South Bay surfing spots has the words “Locals Only” next to Lunada Bay. The Surf Report once advised readers that Lunada Bay in season wasn’t worth the trouble--”unless you know someone who lives there.” And such is the vigilante reputation of its surfer set, that many surfers who complain about hostilities at Lunada Bay don’t want their last names published, fearing reprisals.

“It’s just not worth it because you don’t necessarily have to have anything done to you physically, but they could do something to your car,” said one surfer who refuses to go to Lunada Bay.

For decades, surfers have tried to protect their favorite areas from outsiders. Up and down the Southern California coastline, various beaches have reputations as places where visiting surfers can expect to encounter the wrath of the locals.

“Just about every place you surf has localism,” said Ventura County Sheriff’s Department Lt. Paul Anderson. “It’s not a phenomenon that started last month or last week. When I was a kid up here in the mid-’60s you had localism.”

Some surfers say the Palos Verdes Peninsula in general, where popular surf spots include The Indicator, Boneyards and The Cove, has long been perceived as a place where outsiders are frowned upon by locals.

Palos Verdes Estates Police Capt. Mike Tracy recalls an incident a couple of years ago near The Indicator. While on routine patrol, he saw a surfer running beside the road, surfboard in hand. He had been dodging rocks thrown at him by the locals.

“He had a panicked look on his face and our eyes met and he flagged me down,” Tracy said. “He said he and a friend were starting to go down a trail and some kids (told them they) should get the hell out.”

Tracy said the Lunada Bay surfers rule “by numbers and intimidation, kind of a mini-gang mentality.” Although separate statistics are not kept for Lunada Bay, he estimated the department receives two dozen complaints a year from surfers whose vehicles have been vandalized at Lunada Bay and The Indicator.

Just how many locals regularly ride the waves at Lunada Bay is unknown, but several surfers estimated the number at 100. In past years, they said, feelings that outsiders should not be allowed were even more intense, and often erupted into more violent behavior. One surfer recalled an outsider’s car being pushed over the cliff overlooking the bay.

The locals, many of whom grew up in upper- and upper-middle-class neighborhoods near Lunada Bay, offer no apologies for treating the stretch of public coastline as if it was their own.

Said John Rall, an 18-year-old senior at Palos Verdes High School: “We have a little attitude going down here, but we have to do it. Surfing is a spiritual thing, and when outsiders come up they are not respecting the surfing grounds of the locals.

“Normally, my conscience would say don’t do this, but my heart would say it is the right thing to do because my heart is what is into surfing.”

Hard-core violence is certainly not condoned or practiced, the locals say. And they have no intention of hurting anyone who may venture to the area.

“You can’t compare us to a gang,” said Mark Griep, 30, who grew up half a block from the bay and has been surfing there for 20 years.

But they do admit to verbally threatening outsiders or throwing rocks at them as they scale the steep cliffs at the ocean’s edge. And in the past, outsiders--or trolls, as they are called--have returned to their cars after surfing to find their tires flattened, windshields smashed or paint scratched.

“It’s not just a barbaric thing, it is done for a purpose,” said 30-year-old Peter McCollum, who was surfing in the bay recently with several buddies.

“The crowds are so intense these days, you can’t have your own little sanctuary. But we do.”

“It’s just a real strong friendship with one another, we all feed off each other’s high,” said John Givens, 21. “It’s a brotherhood, I must say.”