Bohemian Beach Fire Tradition Blamed for Weakening the Moral Fiber of Carmel’s Youth

Waterline

The Carmel Beach is famous for ice cold water, loose dogs, and fine white sand

A lot of people in Carmel these days are deeply concerned with whiteness – the whiteness of the sand on the Carmel Beach.

They’re worried that the purity of Carmel’s famously pristine white sand is being lost as particles of soot migrate north from the southern end of the beach – the zone south of 10th Ave., where beach fires are still legal.

In spite of city workers and volunteers rounding up and removing more than 12,000 pounds of charcoal last year, the sands, we’re told, are growing darker. And there’s a movement underway to get beach fires banned altogether before the situation gets any worse.

But it’s not just purity of sand that’s at risk here. Some parents have now chimed in to support a ban because teenagers are sharing drugs and sex around those fires – temptations we all know our precious sons and daughters would never, ever succumb to without exposure to the will-sapping power of the flames.

Yet the City of Carmel appears to be in no hurry to eliminate this last vestige of its bohemian traditions. And why not? What was a good enough moral climate for Aimee Semple McPherson, Mary Austin and Jaime de Angulo ought to be good enough for us.

DSC06787

You don’t have to be a teenager, we’re glad to say, to enjoy an evening on the beach

Wet Stick

Dogs that spend their lives behind fences and on leashes go delirious with joy when turned loose on the Carmel Beach. Memo to parents: The same holds true for your kids.

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