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One week after a state appeals court ruled that Silicon Valley billionaire Vinod Khosla cannot continue blocking public access to Martins Beach on the coast south of Half Moon Bay, the gate remains padlocked with no-trespassing signs.

But despite Khosla’s apparent defiance of the court in the high-profile case that could affect the public’s ability to visit other beaches across California, the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office is making clear that it considers the scenic stretch of coastline open. People can walk around Khosla’s gate, sheriff’s officials say, and deputies will not write tickets or arrest them for trespassing.

“Folks can access the beach,” said detective Salvador Zuno, a sheriff’s office spokesman. “They can do so, and they are not going to be cited.”

Zuno said that officers have no plans to cut the padlocks off the gate, which sits adjacent to a rural stretch of Highway 1. He said the department is closely following the legal battle as it winds its way through the courts.

Meanwhile, attorneys battling to open the beach said Friday they are preparing to file a motion with the state appellate court seeking to hold Khosla — who co-founded Sun Microsystems and has an estimated net worth of $1.7 billion — in contempt of court.

“We want the court to call him in and make him answer,” said Joe Cotchett, of Burlingame, an attorney for the Surfrider Foundation, an environmental group that filed the lawsuit. “Why is the gate still locked? It’s called arrogance. Billionaire’s arrogance.”

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Khosla’s attorneys did not respond Friday to requests for comment.

On Aug. 9, in a decision that drew national attention, the 1st District Court of Appeal in San Francisco ruled 3-0 that Khosla, a prominent venture capitalist, violated the California Coastal Act when he ended decades of public access to Martins Beach after he purchased the 89-acre property surrounding the beach.

Upholding a 2014 ruling by a San Mateo County Superior Court judge, the appellate court judges, in a 50-page ruling, ordered Khosla to open the gates immediately. Cotchett and other lawyers working the case say they expect him to appeal to the California Supreme Court — and perhaps even to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Surfrider Foundation argued that Khosla’s two holding companies, Martins Beach LLC 1 and 2, needed a permit from the Coastal Commission because they had changed the terms of public access in violation of the Coastal Act. Khosla’s lawyers argued that his private property rights were being violated.

The court agreed in last week’s decision, citing a provision of the Coastal Act that requires Coastal Commission permits not only for people who want to build new structures along the coast, but also for “change in the intensity of use of water, or of access.”

Khosla, 62, bought the Martins Beach property for $32.5 million in 2008 and, within two years, locked a gate that had provided public access to the shoreline. He posted guards, put up a “Beach Closed” sign and set off a furor.

For generations, the land’s previous owners, the Deeney family, had allowed the public to visit the beach for much of the year in exchange for a parking fee to fish for smelt, picnic and surf.

On Friday, locals in the area said they plan to continue to visit the beach. But they urged other visitors to pick up trash, since there are no garbage cans or facilities.

“Respect the residents. Don’t leave trash. Don’t junk the coast,” said Mike Wallace, an economist who lives in Moss Beach and who coaches the surf team at Half Moon Bay High School.

Wallace said sheriff’s deputies have been caught in the middle of the dispute over the years, first citing surfers who climbed over the gate and then — after court rulings — deciding not to as the case played out.

“They are doing the best they can,” Wallace said. “They represent the whole community. They don’t represent just one person in the community.”

Khosla’s lawyers told the State Lands Commission a year ago that he would sell an easement to pass through his land for $30 million, nearly as much as he paid for the entire property. The commission’s staff estimated that rights to use the path, totaling 6.4 acres, have a market value of $360,000. They remain at a stalemate.

“This is a dispute concerning principle, and Mr. Khosla is unwilling to be coerced into giving up a vested constitutional property right,” Khosla’s attorney, Jeffrey Essner of San Jose, said in December at a meeting of the State Lands Commission.

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Advocates for reopening the beach, which Khosla has opened a few times in recent years briefly, only to close the gates again, say the issue is not about taking his property. They contend it’s about restoring access that families, surfers and fishermen enjoyed and established over generations when they traveled down the private road to the shoreline.

“Khosla privatized half mile of ocean. It’s arrogant,” said Ed Grant, a Half Moon Bay photographer who specializes in surfing photos. “I think it’s a horrible precedent to allow the access to be gated. The no-trespassing signs and gates scare a lot of people away.”