Lawyers Jump in As Cities Fight for Surf Title

The dudes at Surfer magazine call it Moniker-gate. On one side is the commercially savvy, go-getting city of Huntington Beach in southern California, 40 miles south of Los Angeles, home to the US Open of surfing and the International Surfing Museum. On the other is the more lackadaisical city of Santa Cruz in northern California, where the waters are chillier and the waves bigger.

At stake is the right to the term Surf City USA, something Santa Cruz officials thought was theirs until Huntington Beach filed a trademark application.

In response, Santa Cruz filed a complaint with the US department of commerce, and claimed copyright on the title Original Surf City USA.

The row escalated last week when Huntington Beach defied the complaint and unveiled its new logo, a lozenge-shaped affair similar to a surfboard featuring the city's pier and the phrase Surf City USA.

"We've heard about [Huntington Beach's] logo and we're not too impressed," Santa Cruz council member Tim Fitzmaurice told the Los Angeles Times. "We think Huntington Beach is a beautiful place, but it's a bathtub. The real waves are up here."

Huntington Beach's online profile has undergone a similar makeover. While visitors to the city's official internet page will find a typical municipal website, those who go instead to surfcityusa.com will be greeted by the same information presented in a startlingly different manner.

The introduction to the website features the strains of the 1963 hit Surf City by Jan and Dean, licensed by the city for its promotional material from one half of the group, Dean Torrence, who lives locally.

Huntington Beach is no stranger to making use of its commercial potential: in 2003 it licensed a "Huntington Beach, Surf City" credit card, and it once made Coca-Cola its official drink, in exchange for $300,000 (£172,480).

"It was the surf media which first dubbed this place Surf City," Torrence told the Christian Science Monitor. "I can say for sure it wasn't Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz is a pretty cool place, but it ain't a surf town."

Santa Cruz claims to be the first place in the mainland US to host surfing. In 1885 two (or three, depending on the account) Hawaiian princes visited Santa Cruz and were so impressed with the waves they commissioned surfboards from a local timber company. Santa Cruz also hosts the longest-running surfing event in the US.

In Huntington Beach the water is warm and for much of the year there is little need for a wetsuit. If Santa Cruz offers a hardcore vision of the surfer's life, all small coves and unpredictable waves, Huntington Beach is easier on the eye, its straight beach providing the perfect spot for all the accoutrements of the surfer lifestyle.

The two cities even have their own surfwear manufacturers: Quiksilver comes from Huntington Beach, and O'Neill from Santa Cruz, where Jim O'Neill is credited with inventing the wetsuit.

The competing merits of the claims could have lawyers tied up for years, but there is a chance that it will be decided as early as September - when Santa Cruz has challenged Huntington Beach to a "surf-off".