Laguna Beach Police Step Up Patrols to Combat Lewd Conduct in City Parks

As the bars close each night, the Laguna Beach Police Department goes on the alert, not just for drunk drivers but for the homosexual men who migrate to Heisler Park to engage in sexual activity, a disturbing nuisance for nearby residents that returns each summer.

Residents near the coastal park, who formed the North Laguna Community Assn. in 1983--in part to fight the problem of public sex--said the lewd conduct in the park, a misdemeanor, is normally worse at night, but recenlty has occurred during the day.

“It’s gotten to where it’s not safe to take your kids in (the bathrooms),” member Ben Blount said.

He contends that the people involved in the nighttime meetings are a “highly organized group,” complete with guards on the lookout for police.

The community association has asked the City Council to crack down on sexual activity at Heisler and at Riddle Field Park, which is on the inland side of Coast Highway and has recently become a place for such encounters.

Police are increasing uniformed patrols and alerting local homosexual groups to the stricter enforcement, although Laguna Beach Deputy Police Chief Jim Spreine said the majority of the city’s homosexual community opposes the park encounters.

For the past two years, police have closed restrooms in Heisler Park at night, and this week they began closing Riddle Field Park restrooms. Spreine said brush also has been cut back in the parks and the lighting improved.

The homosexual community is “no more at fault than anyone else,” Spreine said. “The greatest percentage of gay people’s (sexual activity) is done in the privacy of their own homes,” he said.

“The gay community . . . is in support of (stricter enforcement), but there’s nothing they can do,” Spreine said.

Werner Kuhn, a Laguna Beach resident and executive director of Gay and Lesbian Community Services of Orange County, said, “We stand ready to work with the police” to reduce the park encounters.

The center offers group therapy and private counseling for people engaging in frequent anonymous sex through Sexual Compulsives Anonymous.

“We have been helping people to have healthy, normal sexual encounters, and public sexual encounters are obviously not conducive to that.”

Kuhn said members of his group favor increased patrols because “that protects gay people too.” He said that homosexuals are often harassed in public places such as parks, and increased police presence helps limit the harassment.

Kuhn said he also supports the use of uniformed, rather than plainclothes, officers. Spreine said his department is strict about the use of plainclothes officers “to avoid any question of entrapment. We’d much rather be a deterrent through high visibility.”

Lee Garlington, a psychologist with the Laguna Beach Community Clinic which counsels men who seek anonymous sex, said many suffer from low self-esteem and have a naturally compulsive personality that causes an urge with “a life of its own.”

Garlington said he thinks the prospect of arrest is often not enough to deter those who seek anonymous sex. “They need to find out what’s lacking in their lives and make them understand why they do this” or the compulsion will override fear of arrest.

Kuhn agreed that the problem was more social and psychological than criminal. “We take regular referrals from the courts” for counseling of those who have been convicted of lewd activity, he said, adding that he felt counseling was the only way to reduce the problem. While sexual activity in the parks has been reduced through increased media and police attention recently, Blount said, “as soon as they let up, it increases again.”

“We hope it won’t pick up again this time.”