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SIMA Honors Legendary Surf Shops
A lot of cultural landmarks have been honored recently—the 50th anniversary of British Invasion bands such as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones dominating rock-music charts, the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s march on Selma—and the surf scene has its own golden anniversary coming up.
Many of the high-profile, core surf shops that popularized surf culture and built the surf industry are 50 or a few years older. Surf Industry Manufacturers Association, a trade group headquartered in Aliso Viejo, Calif., will honor these venerable surf shops with the 2015 SIMA Surf Shop Gold Wave Award. The inaugural Surf Shop Gold Wave awards will be presented Feb. 12 at SIMA’s Image Award Show at City National Grove of Anaheim, Calif.
Doug Palladini, SIMA’s president, who also serves as a vice president and general manager for Vans’ Americas division, said it was crucial to honor these shops, which had done so much to build the surf scene.
“A surf shop is very influential to its local surf community—the hub of the local surf community, in most cases—and these shops are legendary,” Palladini said.
About 20 shops are being honored for the inaugural Gold Wave award, and because surf’s popularity skyrocketed in California 50 years ago, many of the honorees are based in the Golden State. SIMA’s Surf Shop Gold Wave Award honor roll includes some of the first surf shops, such as Hobie of Dana Point, O’Neill Surf Shop of San Francisco, Jack’s Surfboards of Huntington Beach and Katin in Sunset Beach, which opened in the 1950s, and others that started business in the 1960s, such as Val Surf, headquartered in North Hollywood; Haut Surfboards of Santa Cruz; Froghouse of Newport Beach; and Dive & Surf of Redondo Beach.
Tickets are on sale for the awards show. They may be purchased at the SIMA website (www.regonline.com/simaimageawards).
