Surf鈥檚 up, but the hang loose attitude is down.
The , which began on Saturday in the surf hub of Huntington Beach, California, has had plenty of winners already. Cam Richards took top seed in the Men鈥檚 Junior Pro category with a 2.39 scoring lead, while local Kanoa Igarashi took the best combined score. On Sunday, California native Meah Collins jumped to the top of the Women鈥檚 Junior Pro competition with a heat score of 16.23 in Round 1. For the Men鈥檚 Trial, Cory Arrambide, Bino Lopes, Kai Barger, and Santiago Muniz advanced to Monday鈥檚 all-day main event. Legend Kelly Slater is scheduled to ride the waves of Heat 12.
But the sport itself has been losing out, thanks to gun threats, riots, and amped-up security detail tainting the event. The 2013 Open saw more than 20 arrests during that broke out on the event’s last day. To avoid lawlessness this year, organizers implemented some new, not-so-carefree to keep beachgoers in check, such as no alcohol, no music, mandatory bag searches, and a shrunken version of the 鈥渧endor鈥檚 village.鈥澛
Despite the precautions, there were still scares during opening events. A 16-year-old boy was arrested on suspicion of threatening acts of violence after police received reports of 鈥渄isturbing鈥 social media posts. Authorities obtained a search warrant and found a shotgun and handgun in the teen鈥檚 residence, where he was arrested.
Extra precautions have been taken, but the teen told police that he was 鈥渏ust messing around.鈥 鈥淲e don鈥檛 necessarily know that for sure,鈥 Huntington Beach Police chief Robert Handy told the on Saturday. 鈥淗is comment or statement to the officers last night was that he didn鈥檛 mean it.鈥