Houseboat War I

By Larry Clinton
The houseboat wars of the mid-70s, with scenes of boat-to-boat jousting between hippies and sheriff’s deputies, are a well-documented part of Sausalito’s history.  But the wrangling over the waterfront began far earlier.
In February, 1958, the Marin News reported that Attorney John B. Ehlen filed suit against waterfront property owner Don Arques on behalf of the City, charging that more than 20 “shacks and shanties” were being used as dwelling places without any sewer connections. He called the condition a “health hazard,” and vowed to fight until “we clean this matter up.”
Arques accused Ehlen of persecuting him, and said, “I am being singled out and harassed.”
“It is quite untrue that brother Don is being ‘singled out’,” Ehlen said in reply. “The city council has directed me to abate all public nuisances created and maintained by users and owners of structures on Sausalito’s waterfront who are illegally polluting and contaminating the waters of Richardson Bay.
The city attorney   said legal proceedings are being prepared and filed against what he termed
“all these scofflaws.”    
 He said if Arques is being harassed he had brought it upon himself.
“His (Arques’) wail of self-pity, reminds me of the fellow who murdered his father and mother and then prayed for the court’s mercy on the ground that he was an orphan,” Ehlen said.
“I don’t believe the taxpayers of Sausalito, who have heavily taxed themselves to create and maintain a sanitary sewer system,   desire that anyone be permitted to defy and defeat the purpose of that system by dumping sewage, including human excretia, into the waters of Richardson Bay.”
According to the newspaper,   many waterfront residents were reportedly seething at Ehlen’s earlier statement that “I like pigs, too, but not in my living room.” As the paper reported: “The majority of comments did not readily adapt themselves to print, but clearly indicated strong feeling on the part of the barge and houseboat dwellers. ‘Who does Ehlen think he is calling us pigs!’ one of them stormed. Someone ought to sue him.    
“Commented another: ‘&*%!!!’”
The following month a writer named John Raymond had some fun at the expense of both parties.  Here are excerpts from his article titled “Water Pistols at Ten Paces? Ehlen, Arques Spar in Epic Sea Battle.”
Sausalito’s aquatic heavyweights continued their verbal fisticuffs this week, with neither scoring a decisive victory.
Landlubber John B. Ehlen, Sausalito’s intrepid city attorney, and waterfront property owner Donlon J. Arques, big daddy of the houseboat set, delivered telling blows, before scurrying back to their respective corners.
“Arques is a sea lawyer who’s very much at sea,” jabbed Ehlen, moving quickly out of range.
The historic background for this weekly ringfest is at once simple and complex.
Caught square in the middle, however, are approximately 50 houseboats and barges that dot the Sausalito waterfront. These are inhabited by a picturesque group of rugged individualists who believe that an emerald sea and the wail of fog horns are preferable to asphalt and honking autos.
OBLIVION LOOMS
As one of them put it: “It’s a wonderful life in a tense world.”
The “wonderful life” appears to be teetering on the brink of oblivion at the moment, however. The city attorney claims the houseboats are polluting Richardson Bay because they are not hooked up to a sewer line.
“Nonsense,” replies Arques. “Belvedere has been dumping all its sewage in Richardson Bay for years. Why all the sudden fuss over less than a hundred houseboat dwellers?”
FROGMAN’S PARADISE
Ehlen is attempting to remove the houseboats through court action on the grounds they constitute a health menace. Besides, he insists, they are moored on city streets, even though the “streets” in question are under water and would be of little immediate use to anyone other than a frogman or an itinerant mermaid with a penchant for strolling down the avenue.
The immediate target for Ehlen’s civic wrath is the Lassen, a rotting two-masted   schooner whose decaying hulk has settled into the muck and mire of one of Sausalito’s underwater streets.  [In the late 40s, artists Ed and Loyola Fourtane turned the Lassen into a gathering spot for Sausalito’s art colony.]
LIKE IT’S PLANTED
Ehlen further claims the Lassen is no longer a ship but a structure, because it is firmly imbedded in the city’s “street.”
“If that’s true,” snapped Arques, “then the city owns it anyway, and it’s their responsibility to get rid of it.”
The article concluded: “Meanwhile, Sausalito’s houseboat dwellers have organized, and plan to fight the impending ban on their homes. Their next meeting will take place Monday at 8:30 p.m. at the Old Town Coffee House. “


Donlon Arques in his Gate 3 shop in the mid-1970s.
© Bruce Forrester