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by Robb Fulcher
Hermosa Beach has long prided itself on being the little town that refused to take itself seriously, the black sheep sibling of the vastly more yuppified Manhattan Beach to the north.
For years Hermosa was where the bungalow refused to give way to the high-priced, curb-to-curb house, the mayoral gavel seemed to rotate from the scruffy likes of Roger Creighton to the scruffy likes of Bob Benz, and the unofficial yet iconic Fourth of July Ironman event revolved around chugging beer and throwing up.
"But castles made of sand melt into the sea, eventually," and Hermosa's old ways are gradually yielding to a rising tide of higher-income housing that crowds out the Strand-cruising renters and brings in the less party-hearty, more upwardly-mobile family-oriented dweller.
Even Hermosa's partying side has received a makeover, with the upscale, three-year-old Pier Plaza attracting Manhattanites and USC students to mix with the homegrown weekenders in mostly sparkling, if sometimes rowdy, environs.
The "Ironman," which claims its 26th year of primacy on Independence Day, represents as much as anything the lingering buzz of domestic beer and locals drenched with sand, salt and foam.
With a name pirated from a more serious athletic competition, contestants in the "Ironman" run a mile along the beach, paddle another mile in the ocean and return to land to chug a six-pack and try, with little success, to keep the suds down.
Last Fourth of July 148 mostly young men and two young women took part, guzzling from more than 70 cases of beer and hurling like mad before a large crowd of young, shouting spectators in the sandy front yard of a 29th Street home.
For the first time, the Easy Reader's vomit-soaked coverage of the vomit-soaked event drew a handful of disgusted phone calls and a letter from a Manhattan man who complained about photo coverage of one contestant throwing up on another.
For years Benz has been the central figure of the "Ironman," last year hovering around the entry process and singing the National Anthem to kick off the event. This year Benz will again be present, but for the first time in 16 years he represents, by his own account, a fading local legacy.
For the past eight years Benz served upon the city council, becoming one of the leaders of a downtown business revitalization. Before that he was the popular host of a boozy cable access TV program that earned him his initial local fame. Now he is private citizen Benz, looking at a new Hermosa and scratching his hung-over
'New people' unhappy
"For some people that's what Hermosa is, the 'Ironman,' things like that. A lot of the new people, they don't like that kind of thing," said Police Capt. Mike Lavin, who was raised in Hermosa since age 10.
Lavin, who exudes an easygoing affection for Hermosans both new and classic, said Independence Day incidents such as fights, excessive noise and party crashing are often caused by "Ironman" participants.
"We've found in the past that we wind up following them around from spot to spot," Lavin said.
As a side note, police expect a quieter Fourth of July this year because the holiday falls mid-week. Nevertheless, they are changing their deployment strategy to better quell loud or rowdy parties.
And the now-shadowy organizers of the "Ironman" have said that they will eschew punk rock music this year because of too-violent slam pits at last year's after-parties.
New people aplenty
As newer, bigger houses and condos sprout up next to the bungalows and cracker boxes of yesteryear, home-owning family folk often find their renting neighbors too noisy, and their new neighborhoods too cramped and impractical.
"You're seeing that pop up a lot. Someone comes in and builds a new home, and they have to meet the new codes with setbacks and parking spots, and they don't understand why there are no sidewalks and their neighbors are parked over the red line [partially into the roadway]," Lavin said.
Those new families are fairly pouring into Hermosa.
"The demographics have changed dramatically here in the last few years," said Dan Ericson, owner of Ericson Beach Real Estate in Hermosa and a lifelong beach cities resident who grew up playing in vacant lots that are no longer vacant.
"Traditionally Hermosa used to rank among Los Angeles County's most stable areas in terms of the turnover of property ownership. Now we are seeing a much more rapid turnover," he said.
One reason, Ericson said, is the boom in condo development, which allows first-time buyers to get a foothold at the beach on their way to the eventual purchase of the traditional single-family home.
Another is the increasing attractiveness of Hermosa to the young family.
"The quality of education you can get for a child in Hermosa Beach is for all intents and purposes comparable to the level of education in Manhattan Beach," Ericson said. "It used to be a couple of notches behind, but now it's right on par. That is bringing more and more families back to the beach, even at the prices they are paying," Ericson said.
A comprehensive real estate listing shows homes currently on the market ranging from $2.6 million to $377,500 in Hermosa's westerly "sand section." In the town's middle "valley section" homes ranged from $377,000 to $155,000 (for a one-bedroom, one-bathroom condo with no view), and east of Pacific Coast Highway the prices ranged from $899,000 to $34,900. A recent Los Angeles Magazine named the "valley section" as one the Los Angeles County's "10 best kept secret neighborhoods."
Changing of the guard
Benz' exit from city politics last year may have marked a sea change in the attitudes of Hermosans. He had been swept into office by a ragtag coalition that knew him primarily as host of the "Burgie Live!" cable talk show that featured lots of beer, and characters such as a gay surfer and a Nazi-uniformed parking enforcement officer.
Last year, after two terms on the city council, Benz took what was broadly regarded as the politically suicidal step of leaving the council to run against incumbent Treasurer John Workman in a two-way race.
"My constituency was drunks and losers, and really old ladies. By 'old ladies' I mean they were like 75 and over when I first ran. I had them sewed up, but they gradually passed away, and the drunks and losers got priced out of the market."
Benz said he had lost his stomach for his council post.
"The last two years people kept coming before the council whom I had nothing in common with, and I thought man, this place has just become so yuppified," he said. "As LA grows everything is getting squished toward the beach."
Benz had few kind words to say about the new Hermosans.
"In my parents' day, the old farts who made it through the depression, it gave them a different view of life. Adversity breeds a different character. People my age think they're entitled to everything. It's all about me, I, my streets, my kids, and damn it, someone's parking in front of my house. It's the whole idea of 'I bought a house next to LAX and I'm entitled to peace and quiet. Since when?" he said.
"For the past 30 years or so we've had it extremely lucky. There are people in other places who are starving. They'd like to come to our parties, just to eat the chips."
Fight for the right
"I was talking to this yuppie type guy, he had his wife and kids in tow, and he said you know, I'm entitled to some peace and quiet, and when you party you infringe on my right to peace and quiet," Benz said.
"And I told him you know what, I'm entitled to f-k up your peace and quiet. This 'entitlement,' since when do we have this sense of an entitlement to peace and quiet? They are infringing on the right of other people to party. I work hard all week and on the weekend I have the right to get f----d up and party."
Benz also took a swipe at people who have increasingly pushed for the closure of their narrow residential streets to auto traffic, a move he fought tooth and nail as a councilman.
"What am I going to do? I'm going to get pissed, I'm going to get mad, I'm going to shut down my street. And by the way, you better get out of my way, because I'm going to hang on your bumper," he said.
Warming to the task, Benz mocked the growing anti-"Ironman" sentiment.
"Drinking beer, it's wrong!" he said. Then he noted that the beer is usually thrown up again in short order. "They're tasting it twice, that's twice as bad!"
Ironically, Benz counts himself among the forces that have made Hermosa more yuppie-attractive. As a councilman he was among those easing restrictions on businesses and shepherding construction of the Pier Plaza.
"It's more desirable to live here. It used to be a sh-hole. Eight years ago downtown was a toilet. Now at 10'clock Tuesday night it's more crowded than it used to be on a Saturday night. It became the place to be," Benz said.
"To some degree I fault myself. I'm not the sole reason, but I'm part of the reason, that Hermosa has become what it is," he said.
And as Hermosa changes so does Benz, he added wistfully.
"I've got to be honest with you dude, my wife's car is a Navigator. How much more yuppie can you get? The 'Extravagator,'" he confessed.
Not only that, but Benz is soon to become a family man. He and wife Patricia Spiritus Benz, owner of Hamilton Gregg Brewworks in Hermosa, are expecting.
"It's weird, man," Benz concluded.
New guard
Benz' replacement on the city council, Kathy Dunbabin, ran what Benz regarded as a thinly veiled "vote for me because I won't be like Benz" campaign.
Dunbabin stressed throughout the campaign that she wanted to increase a sense of "professionalism" on the council.
"I'm tired of our town having the image of a 'let's get drunk and party' town," she said during a campaign season interview. "What the city council is, portrays to some people what the community is."
She repeatedly declined to say whether she was referring to Benz, saying that she didn't want to go negative. But she held campaign coffees with Benz' opponent in the treasurer's race, and put up campaign signs for Workman as well.
Hometown pride
In an interview on Monday, Dunbabin, a 20-year Hermosa resident, noted the influx of families and cited the city's public schools and its increasingly upscale reputation.
"It used to be I could be somewhere 20 or 30 miles outside Hermosa and mention the town and people would say, 'Where's that?' Now people know about Hermosa Beach," she said.
"I don't want to be combative, but I would like it if the 'Ironman' would go away. But that's just the way it is," she said, noting that the beery portion is held on private property.
"I just don't like people acting that way, drinking beer with the intention of throwing up," she said. "I've never thrown up in my life and thought 'Gee, I enjoyed that.' I guess I won't be a contestant this year."
Dunbabin agreed with Benz on one thing: the times they are a-changin'.
"People are taking pride in the city. They're taking better care of the exterior of their homes, and cleaning up trash. I saw a man sweeping out the gutters on his block because he just wanted everything to look nice," she said.
"I think Hermosa is just growing up." ER