Matt Kile Mystery - 04 - Find My Little Sister by David Bishop

Author:David Bishop
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Mystery, Thriller
Published: 2014-01-27T00:00:00+00:00

Is Santa Monica Water a Bay or a Bight? That is the Question.

Tony Cornero and his lawyers claim that the waters that come into Santa Monica constitute a bight which, without getting too technical, is the curve in a shoreline. Thus if the shore curves the water of the ocean is just that: ocean. California Attorney General, Earl Warren, Los Angeles Mayor, Fletcher Bowron, and others claim the same waters are a bay which is a low indentation in the shoreline. Thus, if the shoreline is indented, the land continues to exist below the water. This take on it includes the position that the true ocean begins only beyond the submerged shore and out to that point is subject to California laws and regulations.

Then there are those who say that bay and bight are synonymous and mean the same thing. Thus, the waters off Santa Monica are not one or the other but, in essence, both.

These machinations have done little to dampen the enthusiasms of the loyal patrons of the Rex. Through it all, business on the ship remains strong, but Tony Cornero is spending more and more time of his days in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Common sense tells me one cannot catch ocean fish inside the shoreline of the state, nonetheless, that is the argument. The authorities contend that an imaginary line must be drawn from the bay’s northern headland to the southern headland, with that imaginary line, despite it being submerged, constituting the legal shoreline of California. This means the three-mile jurisdictional line is three miles beyond that line or roughly six miles off the dry shore of Santa Monica.

I know this all seems to be dancing on the head of a pin. Nonetheless, the dance is on and the two lead dancers: Tony Cornero and California Attorney General Earl Warren each plans to define our dance ticket.

To summarize all this semantical mumbo jumbo: If Cornero is right, California’s three-mile jurisdiction begins at the dock on the Santa Monica dry shore. If the attorney general is judged correct, the three-mile border of California authority begins at that submerged imaginary line. With that outcome, Cornero and other gambling ship operators would need to move and re-moor their floating gambling dens six plus miles from Santa Monica’s dry shore, a distance too far for water taxis to comfortably ferry gamblers to ships which would then be anchored in less predictable waters.

This legal entanglement, which is far from over despite Cornero’s most recent victory, will ultimately either remove the law’s efforts to interfere with these ships or effectively shut them down. Tony Cornero and the other gambling ship operators will flourish or flounder. It also means that you and I will either have or not have the option to gamble on those ships.

We call our fair city, the City of Angels, yet it can only be so if angels are also jungle animals. For, like beasts, the powers among us often lie in wait, snarling now and again to remind us they are close, then charge when they determine it is in their interest to do so.

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