Tight Rein Set on ’87 Surf Contest

Strict control of liquor, earlier schedules and a limitation on coverage by cable television will be enforced at next year’s Op Surfing Championships in a move that the Huntington Beach City Council hopes will prevent a repeat of this year’s Labor Day weekend riot.

The council voted unanimously Monday night to endorse those recommendations of a panel appointed to investigate the Aug. 31 melee, which ended in destruction of several police and lifeguard vehicles, the looting of a lifeguard station and the injury of several people in scuffles between rioters and police.

Contest Sponsor Agrees

The contest sponsor, Ocean Pacific Sunwear Ltd., which had representatives on the nine-member panel, has agreed to schedule the contest some time other than Labor Day weekend to avoid the huge crowds that traditionally flock to the beach on the last weekend of summer vacation.

Rich Barnard, assistant city administrator, said the contest also will be without the usual accompanying events such as skateboarding and a bikini contest. “We want the event to be in the community, but we want it to focus on surfing. We want people to come down to watch the contest,” he said.

Barnard said consumption of liquor on the beach already is a violation of city law, a law that will be strictly enforced next year.

Other recommendations of the panel included providing extra crowd control training for police and use of community volunteers to help head off potentially violent situations. Another recommendation was the use of video cameras to monitor the crowd. Police have used videotaped film of the riot to make about 40 arrests so far.

Panel members said representatives from MTV, a cable TV music channel, had encouraged the rowdy atmosphere on the day of the riot by sponsoring a bikini contest and generally encouraging a party atmosphere.

However, an MTV spokeswoman denied Tuesday that the cable channel had any connection with the violence. “We were actually nowhere near where that took place,” Carol Robinson said. “In fact, I was just glad that none of our people were hurt.”