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# Vandals court disaster on beach
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/vandals-court-disaster-on-beach/
- Published: 2005-04-21T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T06:42:35.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Crime, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*By KIM CALVERT Special to the Daily Press*

SM BEACH — Apparently, someone doesn’t like volleyball.

“In all the years I’ve been coming down here, I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Santa Monica resident David Heiser.

The 81-year-old retired school teacher, and longtime volleyball fan and player, was referring to the massive amount of broken glass in and around the four volleyball courts located next to the Back to the Beach restaurant at 444 Pacific Coast Highway this past weekend.

Heiser said he warned players — a regular group of about 16 people — to watch out as they arrived for their regular Sunday morning game.

The courts have been a target for vandalism in the past, but it was limited primarily to cutting and tearing the net, or tearing down the sign-up sheet, according to Heiser.

“Someone seems to be very unhappy with their life,” he said. “Whoever is doing this seems to have a problem with other people having fun.”

Ed Silverstein, a Santa Monica resident, Daily Press columnist and regular player at the volleyball court said because of Heiser’s warning, the teams decided to sift through the sand on the courts before starting their game.

“We were really upset to find so much glass,” Silverstein said. “There was all kinds — window glass, bottle glass — and it all appeared to be very sharp and was buried in the sand on the courts with the sharpest edges pointing upwards.”

Silverstein said they also found new, five-inch nails, as well as other nails buried in the sand.

“It looked like it had been done intentionally,” Silverstein said. “Like some depraved person was trying to see someone get hurt.”

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/55/9f/559f9abc-8372-4a2e-8c2d-27386da4e363/content/images/2026/10/042105-01_01.jpg)

to the Daily Press The city’s beach volleyball courts have been suspected targets of vandalism. (Photo: Kim Calvert/Special)

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 21, 2005.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/042105.pdf?ref=smdp.com)