Stone v. City of Los Angeles

This is an appeal from a judgment enjoining the appellants from leasing certain tide lands and overflowed lands for the purpose of drilling for oil and gas thereon.

Respondent is a resident and taxpayer of the City of Los Angeles and the owner of real property in what was formerly the city of Venice, which property fronts on Santa Monica Bay. The City of Los Angeles is a municipal corporation organized under a freeholders’ charter. Raymond E. Hoyt is the superintendent and Charles S. Lamb the secretary of the Department of Playground and Recreation of the City of Los Angeles. The other appellants are commissioners of the Department of Playground and Recreation of the City of Los Angeles. Under the charter and by ordinances of the City of Los Angeles the Department of Playground and Recreation is given “the sole jurisdiction to execute any permits, concessions, licenses and leases upon any tidelands, public beach lands and submerged lands, whether filled or unfilled, belonging to or controlled by the City of Los Angeles . . . provided that any such permit, concession, license or lease is consistent with the trusts under which any of said lands are held by the City of Los.…