If you're burning $2,000 for a VIP table at Surfer Magazine's 36th annual Surfer Poll and Video Awards ceremony Tuesday night at the Grove of Anaheim, at least you can feel warmed that you are helping two worthy causes. Proceeds from VIP table sales at the annual, invite-only event that honors the best in surfing and surf cinematography will be shelled out to the Save Trestles campaign and Surfers for Cetaceans.
Surfrider Foundation's Save Trestles has been one of the leading opponents of the Transportation Corridor Agency's plan to extend the 241 Toll Road along a 16-mile route that straddles San Mateo Creek and cuts into San Onofre State Park. Surfrider fears that construction and road runoff directly threatens the world-class surf break at and around Trestles, and that habitat critical for the survival of at least seven endangered species, including the Southern Steelhead trout, will be critically degraded.
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Surfers for Cetaceans calls on surfers everywhere to support the conservation and protection of whales and dolphins and other marine wildlife, to protest whaling and the killing of threatened and endangered species, and to end the pollution of our marine environment. When freesurfer Dave “Rasta” Rastovich and artist/marine conservationist Howie Cooke founded the organization in 2004, it was originally called Surfers for Sanctuaries.
“Trestles is one of the most iconic waves in the surf world, and we want to be part of them in protecting it,” explains Rick Irons, Surfer's publisher. “The other is the Surfers for Cetaceans, which Rasta has been spearheading to save the dolphins and other sea life. His passion for this has brought this to the surf world’s attention and we are backing it.”
Analog/Burton, Billabong, Billabong Girls, Boost, Channel Islands, DC Shoes, Etnies, Hurley, Nike 6.0, No Fear, O'Neill, PacSun, Quiksilver, Rip Curl, Roxy, Rusty and Sanuk are among the companies that have already ponied up for VIP tables at the big show that Suzuki's Brea-based American division co-presents with Surfer.
Not on the invite list? See the live webcast at surferpoll.com.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.