In fact, the county had only eased restrictions that have been in place for more than 40 years and carry a much lesser fine of $100, a spokesman for Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said.
"There has been a lot of misinformation and a lot of concern and anger on the part of the public," said Joel Bellman, a press deputy for Yaroslavsky. "It was a good faith effort to create new opportunities for people to play on the beach that they didn't have under the old ordinance."
Reports that supervisors had ratcheted up fines for throwing footballs and Frisbees on the county's beaches to $1,000 made international headlines, became a point of ridicule on local talk radio and infuriated locals.
Bellman said Yaroslavsky's office alone had fielded dozens of phone calls and e-mails from irate constituents since the first news reports this week.
In fact the original law, which dates to 1970, makes it an infraction to "cast, toss, throw, kick or roll" anything other than a beach ball on a Los Angeles County beach -- a rule that may have escaped the notice of many Southern Californians.
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Ehh, my thoughts are that if you have a longtime obscure law on the books, and no problems are arising despite the fact that its being broken, perhaps its time to get rid of it, or loosen it, which its seems like the county did.
I just love how in this day and age of internet and 24 hour cable how people, hair trigger ideologues in particular, will take a story that outrages them, and without hesitation, believe every sordid awful detail as gospel, and go spread the propaganda far and wide without scrutinizing things first, no matter how flimsy the source of their information.
That being said, we live in a time when our news isn't very newsworthy anymore.
