A Lawsuit Against Brewers Billionaire Owner Mark Attanasio Claims That He Has Been Stealing Sand From A Beach In Malibu With An Excavator And Bringing It To His Own Property
What is that saying? "Dont bring sand to the beach?" Well Brewers billionaire owner was never told he couldn't take sand FROM the beach, especially if it's right outside his mansion in Malibu.
Mark Attanasio is currently being sued by his other billionaire neighbors for using an excavator to pick up tons of sand and bring it back to his mansion for a construction project of his own. Why buy bags of sand from Home Depot when you can just use heavy machinery to pick it up out of your backyard? This really is a 1st world problem, "my mansion needs sand so I'm just going to get it myself." Not only do the neighbors not enjoy the machines taking the sand, the lawsuit alleges that they're leaving oil and gasoline residue all over the beach, not great! It's a public beach which is the core of all the outrage, who knew that you couldn't just take whatever sand you wanted? I knew nothing about Mark Attannasio before today but now I think he may be a villain in a children's movie. What a strange way to piss off your neighbors.
In the lawsuit it states that Attanasio had received the correct permits a few months back to fix a damaged seawall. He did that plus more. In June and July his neighbors took pictures of the excavators taking buckets of sand off the beach and onto his private property. The lawsuit says “This case is about a private property owner using a public beach as their own personal sandbox and the disturbing conversion of a public natural resource (i.e., sand from Broad Beach) for a nearby homeowner’s personal, private use."
To me this sounds like a rich man doing whatever he wants because he's never been told no. He wants sand from the beach? He's going to get it. He wants a slide in his ballpark, he gets it. Apparently these excavators are just leaving giant holes on the beach too, again this is a public beach where people can go. Not a great beach experience when you've got gasoline, holes, and probably no sand around to build sandcastles with.
Attannasio and his lawyer have said they have done nothing wrong and have abided by the permits. Doesn't sound like that is the case, unless the permit said "feel free to jack a bunch of sand from the beach and use it to build your own oasis in your own big ass backyard". Maybe next time he'll just go to Home Depot like the rest of the people who want some sand. This seems like a skit out of a show or some spin off "Despicable Me" movie. I can see it now, Rich man steals all the sand from a beach in the middle of summer and some group of kids has to find a way to get it back. "Billionaire Steals Sand" was not something I thought I'd be reading about in the year 2024.