They're the thinnest of lines, dividing three-and-a-bit Peninsula streets right down their often-faded centres.

But to people who care about such things, only those who reside within the lines are from White Rock. All others live elsewhere.

Community pride is so often encouraged, who would dare suggest otherwise? "We're number one." "The best place on earth." "My city, right or wrong."

Yet for many White Rockers, not being Surrey is more than just a mantra.

Pity the poor South Surrey business that dares put White Rock in its address or – even worse – title. The smaller city will sic its most rabid White Rock pedants on first-time offenders.

After all, without any conceivable industrial base, residential and business taxes are higher. Only those south of 16th have earned the right to tell the world they're from White Rock.

We at the Peace Arch News are feeling a bit of fallout from this civic pride run amok, as we hear grumbles that we're turning our backs on our city by moving a few blocks north this weekend.

I don't know where the idea came from that when Peace Arch News founder Roy Jelly printed his first edition back in February 1976, he wanted to serve only White Rock.

He didn't. In fact, PAN's first front-page line story, Feb. 10, was about a Post Office Department bulk-distribution centre going in at 24 Avenue and King George Highway. (A photo of a new Buena Vista library under construction in White Rock proper made Page 3.)

But here we are thirtysome years later, and for the first time our news articles are about to be filed from the dreaded South Surrey – coincidentally just a short walk east of the still-sorting Canada Post building.

Little will change this week to next. Same writers. Same beats. Just slightly further from the equator.

In fact, if scuttlebutt on the street is any indication, there's always the slim chance the rest of White Rock will follow suit. At least, there seems to be an active whisper campaign to have White Rock de-incorporate to its status pre-1957, the year it separated from Surrey.

But that's a topic for a more serious column with a less-impudent tone.

For now, we'll leave the issue to those who are pained about city limits. I suspect far more are content to consider the Semiahmoo Peninsula one community – Crescent Beach, Ocean Park, Sunnyside, White Rock, Hazelmere, Southpoint, Rosemary Heights, Morgan Creek, Grandview and Campbell Heights – regardless of politically-defined borders.

This isn't to say the blurring of civic boundaries doesn't get confusing for the best of us.

Take my family friend, who was planning a visit here last summer from Kelowna (Westbank, really, for those who care about such things east of here).

Having lived in the Lower Mainland most of her life, she knows her way around, and she certainly knows the difference between South Surrey and White Rock.

My friend called the South Surrey branch of a well-known home-renovation chain that opened its doors in Grandview – PAN's new neck of the woods – not that long ago. She arranged a pickup for her next major purchase.

Arriving with her truck after the 3½-hour drive into town, she was told she had come to the wrong branch. This is the White Rock store; the South Surrey one is in the 7300-block on the Delta border, nearly another half-hour away.

It's enough to turn one into a rabid South Surrey pedant.