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If you’ve walked the Hermosa Beach Pier, you’ve seen the Surfer’s Walk of Fame. But the walk is short three commemorative plaques after someone (presumably) stole them.
The plaques are made from brass, which is an alloy created by mixing copper and zinc. Copper is worth around $3.80 a pound at the time of this writing, and with the spate of copper thefts in recent years, officials are theorizing that the plaques were stolen so the thieves could sell the metal.
“Most likely they are taking the brass and selling it at metal shops,” Redondo Beach Police Lieutenant Mike Martinez told Easy Reader News.
According to reports, the missing plaques are for Bob Hogan, a founder of the Catalina Classic Paddleboard Race, and 2014 Pioneer inductees Becher Anderson, Bob Bergstrom, Stu Linder, Richard “Mo” Meine, Warren Miller, and Fenton “Fent” Scholes. Two more were damaged so badly the City Public Works Department had to remove them.
The theft of the plaques is far from the first time things in the area have been stolen for what they’re made from. The plaque on a bench dedicated to Greg Noll was also taken, but has since been recovered and will be reinstalled in the coming weeks. On January 29th, a 500-pound statue at Bruce’s Beach Park in Manhattan Beach disappeared in the night. A few weeks earlier in nearby Redondo Beach, six more brass plaques were stolen from the Veteran’s Park Memorial. Copper wire is going missing on a daily basis from various places.
