JAMIE BALLENGER/ SPECIAL TO THE STAR-BULLETIN Surfer Willy Moss, shown here yesterday, accused a crew from Beach Orchid Film Productions of trashing Chun's Reef near Haleiwa.

Film crew left beach
a mess, surfer says

But the company that shot around
Chun's Reef denies the claim

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By Rosemarie Bernardo
rbernardo@starbulletin.com

A surfer has accused a film production company of trashing a popular Haleiwa surf spot.

"It's really irritating and discouraging to see this kind of thing happen," said Willy Moss, a Haleiwa resident and frequent surfer of Chun's Reef.

Water bottles, plate lunch containers, plastic cups, paint cans and soda cans were left on lava rocks on Chun's Reef and along Kamehameha Highway, Moss said yesterday.

"It was so disgusting," he added. "People were unhappy that stuff was just left there."

Permits are issued to film production companies by the city. Crew members are expected to return the site to its original condition after use, said city spokeswoman Carol Costa.

A crew from Beach Orchid Film Productions Inc. used a vacant house near Chun's Reef as a prop for an untitled surf movie. It is believed debris left at the house was blown onto the beach and Kamehameha Highway, according to North Shore Water Safety officials.

"After the film production company were there off and on for weeks, there wasn't any visible effort to clean up trash on the street and the beach," Moss said.

He picked up a truckload of debris the last two days at Chun's Reef and along Kamehameha Highway. While cleaning up the beach, Moss spotted a call sheet from the film production on the beach and took a picture of it. He sent it to a friend, Jamie Ballenger, who posted the information and photos in the Chun's Reef Surf Club Web site.

Independent location manager Randy Stangler, who was in charge of maintaining the production site at Chun's Reef, said: "We go out of our way to take care of neighborhoods. ... We make an extreme effort to clean up and maintain areas."

Though Stangler said crew members cleaned up the area last week but that "something may have blown onto the beach."

Photos on the Web site had a crew member from the film production company carrying a trash bag and cleaning the front area of the vacant house.

North Shore lifeguards informed Wilfred Ho, Windward district manager for the city Department of Parks & Recreation, of some debris attributed to the movie company.

"They need to police themselves a lot better," Ho said.