Costa Mesa : Fish Fry Serving Up Cod, Parade, Carnival

About 2 1/2 tons of cod will be served up at $4 a plate this weekend at the Newport Harbor-Costa Mesa Lions Club Fish Fry and Carnival, which includes a parade this morning on Harbor Boulevard.

The 40th annual parade--featuring 20 floats, including entries from the cities of Costa Mesa, Garden Grove, Santa Ana, Orange and Huntington Beach--will start at Wilson Street and College Avenue at 10:30 a.m. and proceed south on Harbor Boulevard to 19th Street. About 30,000 spectators are expected to line the boulevard.

Eighteen women will vie in a beauty contest Sunday followed by 125 babies doing battle in their own competition. Lions club member Steve Perrin said it was decided to limit the baby contest to the first 125 entrants because of time constraints. “We had 185 a few years ago and that’s just too many,” he said. “It takes a long time to run them all through.”

The carnival, featuring 143 rides and booths, opened Friday at Lions Park at 18th Street and Newport Boulevard. Fish dinners--about 10,000 of them--are served up each day beginning at noon.

All proceeds will go to several charities, with the biggest slice earmarked for the club’s main project, an eye bank and low-vision clinic at UCI Medical Center in Orange. Perrin said the club has netted about $70,000 from each of the last two carnivals.