Lawrence Welk Area

Warning: This is a long convoluted answer involving a legal question answered by a paralegal, moi. Enter At Your Own Risk ~clown

Until you find out who actually owns the property, and, more importantly, who controls easements, access and permission to the roads, the answer is, maybe but probably not.

I think part of the confusion in all this is a couple of things; what is "legal" and where is "Lawrence Welk"

Let's start with "legal"
Most legal wheeling areas are pretty easy to define, OHV parks, designated land use areas, established and non-gated roads and so on. The gray area comes in where one has to drive through a gate that is not marked or on roads or property that are either not mapped or marked. The Rodriguez/Oriflamme Canyon road for example has a sign marking the south end of the trail but there is a gate on the north end of the trail that is sometimes closed. Legal or not? It is BLM land open to public usage although there are no signs directly stating that from the north.

"Lawrence Welk" fits in this gray area. There is a mix of public and private property in that area and the boundaries of each are not always clearly marked (although the majority of the land is privately held). In legal terms it may be considered historic trespass, yet another gray area in the law. While historic trespass does not lead into a right to access (although in some circumstances it can lead to an easement) it does lead us to tacit approval of land use.

There is a legal argument that since the owner(s) have not specifically forbade access to the land (there are no "No Trespassing" signs, barriers, gates, posted restrictions or other signs), has knowledge of the trespass and, over a period of time has not taken assertive action to prevent or curtail trespass the owner(s) have given tacit approval for that trespass. That to me seems to be the case here. People have been going up and down those roads for years with no direct action from the property owners to prevent trespass. Recently however developers have moved in, and if you've been up near the Old Castle Road area you'll see what I mean. So now we have a conflict.

Dealing with a Deputy Sheriff or other LEO on the side of the trail is not the place to argue legal tenets and they will ticket first and let you argue points of law later with the Judge. As for impounding vehicles, there are specific requirements in California law and code setting out the circumstances under which a vehicle may be taken, i.e., expired registration, no insurance, unpaid tickets, involvement in a felony offense, properly posted private property with clearly visible signs stating such with relevant CVC sections cited on the sign with recovery information, and lots of other reasons. Wheeling on someone's road is not among them. But, just because impoundment is not specifically allowed under the law in this instance does not mean your vehicle can not be impounded. Again, the side of the road is not a court of law, tow first and tell the Judge about it later.

My feeling is that is has always been outside of legal but no one really cared. Now that million dollar+ homes are going in it is suddenly a problem.

From a legal standpoint I would advise against wheeling in that area, but if you want to go up there and look around I'm game

Next question is what is "Lawrence Welk?" I think we should go up there, take a look around and see what we can find and define the exact roads and trails. If nothing else we can get an idea of property lines and do a little research and find out if there any posted signs.

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