L.A. county...Where diving almost died

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

Saniflush

Contributor
Scuba Instructor
Divemaster
Messages
1,034
Reaction score
999
Location
ATL
Well not died but after seeing @Sam Miller III tag line on his posts and knowing he is a primary keeper of knowledge about diving and more specifically things on the West coast I thought it made sense.

So a podcast that I listen to, has over the last three weeks gone over an incident in L.A. county in 1975 where a few of the politicians in the area became very self important and decided to slap a bunch of regulations on the industry. I found the story fascinating and wondered if any of the folks on here who probably lived through it had any specific memories about what went on, the climate of the community at that point, or just overall feeling on the subject?

I did make a cursory look of threads to see if there was one already but didn't see one so those of you who know, tell us whipper snappers a story about standing up to the bureaucracy.

Just realized that this probably should have been in "History of Scuba Diving" in lieu of here so mods please move if needed.
 
Which podcast?
 
Glad that in 1975 I was diving in a pretty remote part of L.A. County and there was no Internet!
 
Never noticed any regulatory interference, I know it’s popular to cap on politicians, except the ones that are really a problem.
 
As I recall, the original LA County Ordinance (No. 11025) was enacted in 1974 after a number of scuba diving deaths. The current LA County Ordinance is at § 8.32.010. Short title, Chapter 8.32. Scuba Diving, Division 2. Business Regulations, Title 8. Consumer Protection And Business Regulations, Code of Ordinances, Los Angeles County

Interestingly, it still requires buddy breathing to be taught. I'm sure @Sam Miller lll has more insight than I do. M
 
Laguna Beach in Orange County, south of L.A. County, had some restrictions on shore diving.
We were checked over for compliance by the Lifeguards on several occasions.

Divers had to always dive with a buddy, and always have a snorkel.
There may have been more of these rules, but those were the only ones we bothered with.

One friend of mine hated snorkels.
So, he bought a junky kid's snorkel at the dollar store and zip-tied it to his backplate.
It was stuck on there good and solid, so there was no way he could ever use it, but he was in compliance.... sorta.
That's all the Lifeguards cared about.
 
As I recall, the original LA County Ordinance (No. 11025) was enacted in 1974 after a number of scuba diving deaths. The current LA County Ordinance is at § 8.32.010. Short title, Chapter 8.32. Scuba Diving, Division 2. Business Regulations, Title 8. Consumer Protection And Business Regulations, Code of Ordinances, Los Angeles County

Interestingly, it still requires buddy breathing to be taught. I'm sure @Sam Miller lll has more insight than I do. M
There are some other things in there that also do not sync up with some training
 
As I recall, the original LA County Ordinance (No. 11025) was enacted in 1974 after a number of scuba diving deaths. The current LA County Ordinance is at § 8.32.010. Short title, Chapter 8.32. Scuba Diving, Division 2. Business Regulations, Title 8. Consumer Protection And Business Regulations, Code of Ordinances, Los Angeles County

Interestingly, it still requires buddy breathing to be taught. I'm sure @Sam Miller lll has more insight than I do. M
There are actually quite a few things in that ordinance that add considerable time and effort to an Open Water certification course, and I would expect drive up the cost. I wonder if the local industry is actually in compliance, or if this is just routinely ignored and not enforced. (Or perhaps just the portion relating to vessels gets enforced...)

I have to think if actually enforced as written, it would drive most of the instructional activity into neighboring counties just by the competitive nature of the market place.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

Back
Top Bottom