San Diego Surf School Owner Sues Over California State Beaches Monopolizing Surf Instruction

California state beaches are supposed to belong to the public. So should government bureaucrats really have unbridled power to crimp commercial activity on them?

San Diego surf school owner Helina Beck apparently does not think so.

Beck wants to teach surfing on three San Diego County state beaches. But the California Department of Parks and Recreation has repeatedly refused to give her the required contract.

In fact, the Department has only given contracts to two surfing schools for the Northern San Diego state beaches over the last 17 years. And currently only one school has a contract.

So with the help of the Sacramento-based Pacific Legal Foundation, Beck has filed a federal lawsuit to overturn the state regulation that says “soliciting” or commercial activity on state beaches requires a contract with the California Department of Parks and Recreation.

Her lawsuit, filed earlier this year in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California, charges violation of her First Amendment rights.

Giving paid lessons might not, at first glance, seem like a free speech issue.

But it is actually established case law from the Supreme Court on down that giving paid lessons qualifies as protected speech.

Pacific Legal Foundation lawyer Caleb Trotter  explained to the California Globe that, “The Ninth Circuit [Court of Appeals which covers California] has held that teaching others is speech protected by the First Amendment, and the Supreme Court has held that charging a fee in exchange for instructional speech does not diminish the First Amendment’s protection of speech.”

“State Parks cannot just close off miles of public beaches and give the keys to a single surf school,” Trotter emailed. “Monopolizing surf instruction limits the public’s options and prevents small businesses like [Beck’s] from meeting public demand for lessons. And because teaching others how to surf is quintessential speech, State Parks has a high burden to justify its anticompetitive regulation.”

Beck, who has been surfing since she was a little girl in Palos Verdes in Los Angeles County, founded the Wavehuggers surfing school in Northern San Diego county in 2013. Her lawsuit says it now employs 12 year-long instructors, 30 during peak season, and has “provided surf lessons for more than 12,000 people throughout southern California.”

But since 2021, the California Department of Parks and Recreation has rebuffed her attempts to get a contract to teach surfing on  the Carlsbad, South Carlsbad and Cardiff State Beaches in northern San Diego County.

The Department considers giving paid lessons to be “sales activity” that is not allowed under its ban on “soliciting” without a contract.  It does, however, allow teaching for free.

Regardless, while the regulation requires a contract to give paid lessons it does not include any criteria for how somebody can get one. So it is left entirely to the whim of state bureaucrats.

The lawsuit says that, “On several occasions since 2021, and as recently as March 2025, Ms. Beck inquired with local State Parks officials to obtain a permit, agreement, or concession contract pursuant to the Regulation to teach surf lessons at any of Carlsbad, South Carlsbad, or Cardiff State Beaches. She was rebuffed each time.”

Without any explanation for the denial offered!

In March of this year, the Department sent her a cease and desist letter for allegedly teaching surfing lessons on the San Diego beaches without a contract.

“Within the cease-and-desist letter, State Parks invited Ms. Beck to contact local State Parks officials “to discuss the possibility of receiving a concession contract to operate on San Diego State Beaches.” The officials she was invited to contact are the same that have rebuffed her every attempt to obtain such a contract.”

Beck decided to sue.

Her lawsuit asserts, “The First Amendment to the United States Constitution, as applied to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, protects Plaintiffs’ ability to teach others how to surf, even when done on state beaches.”

And, “Prohibiting Plaintiffs from teaching others how to surf is not just a commercial regulation. The Regulation plainly suppresses Plaintiffs’ speech in educational, professional, and therapeutic contexts.”

The lawsuit is asking the Court to issue an injunction prohibiting enforcement of the Regulation because “Plaintiffs have no adequate remedy at law to compensate for the loss of their freedom of speech and will suffer irreparable injury” if it remains in effect.

In addition to the First Amendment claim, the lawsuit also asserts that the Regulation violates the Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection because it makes an arbitrary and capricious distinction between paid and unpaid lessons.

“On its face and as enforced by Defendant, the Regulation creates an arbitrary and irrational distinction between beach uses by singling out paid surf lessons for restriction.”

“There is no rational basis why an instructor may teach a large group surfing lesson for free, whereas instructors who wish to instruct for a fee must obtain a contract with State Parks before giving a surf lesson to a single individual.”

Caleb Trotter says the Department’s response to the lawsuit is due on October 28.

Asked about the lawsuit, Department spokesman Jorge Moren, who daintily includes his preferred pronouns in his email, told the California Globe that “California State Parks does not comment on pending litigation.”