No Room at the Pier

The day after Christmas, I took a friend to the beach in P.B. Near Crystal Pier, I was talking about the cottages built there in the ’30s. I noticed a bunch of people with walkie-talkies yelling at a couple. After 15 minutes of this, the couple walked away. Down Ocean Boulevard a few blocks, three cop cars surrounded the couple. They were detained for an hour.

After they were allowed to leave, I asked the couple what happened. Caryn Pearl told me, “My boyfriend and I were passing the cottages and thought we’d take a look. The gate was opened, and we walked down. One of the [cottages] was open, so we went inside. We were talking about possibly renting one and wondered if the noise or waves would be too loud.

“The door burst open and a crazy-looking guy came in. We had walked by him a few minutes earlier. I thought he was just a homeless person. He yelled at us about trespassing. We apologized and started to explain. He said, ‘Don’t apologize to me. Apologize to the manager. He’s been notified.’

“We walked outside and there were people with walkie-talkies that started yelling at us. We told them we were just looking at the place and they asked about my backpack. They also asked why we shut the door. The manager first offended me by saying, ‘You must be the stupidest person on the planet to think you could go in there.’ As we talked, he said ‘You are so fucking stupid.’ At that point I walked away. He said he called the cops, but I figured he was lying. I didn’t need to stand there and take his abuse.”

I asked what the police did. Pearl said, “They waved me over. They checked my backpack. I said, ‘What was I going to steal, officer? A few bottles of shampoo? They had binoculars on each table, but I wouldn’t dream of taking those. We were just looking at the place.’ They ran a check, probably to see if we had priors. They patted him down. They took a report, but we were free to go, with an hour of time wasted. We have no record and assume they believed our story.”

Response from Jim Bostian, owner of Crystal Pier Hotel & Cottages:

Here are the accurate facts of what occurred 12-26-2009. An angry individual got caught doing something they know they shouldn’t have been doing. This situation was in fact brought to our attention by a guest staying with us that was surprised by these particular individuals trying to let themselves in their unit. The couple was confronted by our guest and then proceeded to leave their private patio. This is when the guest notified the front desk that “someone was trying to GET IN to their unit and they had watched them then walk to the next cottage and were believed to be in that cottage now”. This is when we called on the radio for maintenance, which she noted as a “Crazy-looking Guy” to please go check out what was going on.

As our maintenance reached the patio in which the guest said they had entered, he found that the private gate had been locked. He then had to climb over the PRIVATE gate and proceeded to try to open the sliding glass door to the unit, that in fact had been locked too. Blinds were also pulled shut. Once maintenance finally got in, he confronted the couple that were in deed in the cottage and asked “What are you doing in here?" As they started to try to explain he told them, “Don’t tell me, you’ll have to explain yourself to the office.” That’s when I, the owner of Crystal Pier, confronted the couple.

I did in fact ask the couple, “What do you think you are doing?” At that point the man involved did not say a single word as the woman proceeded to be extremely argumentative stating “I’ve done the same thing at other places” and referenced Pismo Beach as one in particular. No apology was made and also felt there was no wrong in what had just transpired. Yes, words were ex- changed after that and then the police were called. Not only did this couple scare guest in one unit into thinking someone was breaking into their unit but then proceeded to go into another private unit and lock the gate, lock the door, shut the blinds, use the bathroom and sat on the bed.

Needless to say, the police were told by Crystal Pier Hotel to go ahead and charge them with trespassing and whether that was followed through we are still in the mist of trying to figure out. Please note that here at Crystal Pier we believe our guest are entitled to their privacy and should also feel safe when staying with us. We leave this now to you to determine who was in the wrong and thought it was only fair to post the facts relating to this incident. Sincerely yours, Jim Bostian