{"id":177870,"date":"2026-02-14T11:29:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T11:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/177870\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T11:29:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T11:29:15","slug":"judge-denies-couples-restraining-order-to-keep-up-daly-citys-thornton-state-beach-fence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/177870\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge denies couple’s restraining order to keep up Daly City’s Thornton State Beach fence"},"content":{"rendered":"

DALY CITY, Calif. (KGO) — The controversy over the fence that is blocking paths at Thornton State Beach<\/a> went to court on Friday. The couple that put up that fence asked for an emergency restraining order to stop Daly City from tearing it down. We also have exclusive new video of the tensions out there, and a surprise call from a wanted felon who put up that fence, Luke Brugnara.<\/p>\n

Stephen Rose, an attorney for one of the land owners, told the San Francisco Real Estate Court judge, “That fence is a disaster. It’s waste on the property, violates the Coastal Act.”<\/p>\n

The controversy over the fence that blocks public paths to Thornton State Beach has reached San Francisco Real Estate Court. Daly City planned to take down the fence on Thursday but delayed it after Yitong Emily Wen filed for an emergency restraining order.<\/p>\n

“She’s stealing public access to the beach, man,” an open land use advocate yelled through the fence.<\/p>\n

This is our first look at Wen and her partner, Luke Brugnara, arguing with the public about the fence they installed.<\/p>\n

“This is actually on- right where that line is, is our property,” Brugnara said. “You’re actually standing out on our property.”<\/p>\n

I-TEAM EXCLUSIVE: Meet the man behind controversial Thornton State Beach fence in Daly City<\/a><\/p>\n

A man who was arrested for putting up a controversial fence at Thornton State Beach is speaking to I-Team reporter Dan Noyes once again.<\/p>\n

Brugnara is a wanted felon for failing to appear in a federal case over pandemic relief fraud, so he didn’t appear in court. Wen did.<\/p>\n

She told the judge, “Today, I am asking for TRO is to solely to temporary stop Daly City to taking down my legal fence that’s on my property to protect me from inevitable harm.”<\/p>\n

But the judge denied Wen’s request for a temporary restraining order, and asked for briefs on other issues for a hearing next month. Rose Zimmerman, City Attorney for Daly City, told the I-Team, “The fence doesn’t belong there. The fence was illegally put on there. And the fence actually blocks a lot of the it is on the right of way, as well as it’s in violation of the coastal Commission and coastal zone.”<\/p>\n

The judge wants to know why is this hearing is in San Francisco instead of San Mateo County, the location of Thornton Beach. Attorney Stephen Rose says Wen and Brugnara should not have been able to get their 1\/24th ownership share of the property.<\/p>\n

Rose told the I-Team, “To transfer or to sell any piece of that property requires the concurrence of a majority of the owners, and that majority has to include Bruce Norton.”<\/p>\n

Bruce Norton who lives in Utah owns the largest share of the property enclosed by that fence.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Judge orders arrest of man who put up fence, sign to block visitors at Daly City beach<\/a><\/p>\n

“Why do you need the fence?”<\/p>\n

The I-Team tried to get answers from Yitong Emily Wen after court.<\/p>\n

Dan Noyes: “Why do you have the right to put the fence up on their property?”
TiYoung Emily Wen: “Because I am part owner.”
Noyes: “Because you’re part owner.”<\/p>\n

Shortly after that, Noyes received a call from Luke Brugnara. “Let’s just make it clear that the fence is legally compliant. It’s truly detailed. You didn’t cover any of the facts. And the truth is you’re trying to do a hit piece and it’s legally compliant fence and it’s not coming down. It’s really that simple.”<\/p>\n

Luke also wants us to report that he didn’t really attempt to steal $11 million worth of art, a crime for which he spent seven years in prison. He claims the paintings and sculpture were all forgeries. That argument didn’t work on appeal either. More to come in this saga.<\/p>\n

Take a look at more stories by the ABC7 News I-Team.<\/a><\/p>\n


\"Now<\/a><\/p>\n

If you’re on the ABC7 News app, click here to watch live<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 KGO-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DALY CITY, Calif. (KGO) — The controversy over the fence that is blocking paths at Thornton State Beach…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177871,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[84526,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-177870","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-84526","9":"tag-san-francisco","10":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","11":"tag-san-francisco-news","12":"tag-sf","13":"tag-sf-headlines","14":"tag-sf-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}