City Atty. Backs Newport Police Crowd-Control Ideas

The Newport Beach city attorney has affirmed the legality of three measures the Police Department has proposed to control noisy and rowdy crowds during the summer, especially on the Fourth of July weekend, a police spokesman said Tuesday.

Armed with the legal opinion, the department is considering seeking city ordinances that would give the police chief authority to order general curfews in emergency situations, to bill property owners for the cost of responding to calls involving rented, so-called “party houses,” and to tighten municipal noise laws, Police Officer Kent Stoddard said.

A fourth plan to prohibit rentals of single-family homes for fewer than 30 days was scrapped, according to Police Officer Greg Armstrong, after City Atty. Robert Burnham said that it would require a “cumbersome process” of seeking zoning amendments and that legal challenges would surely follow.

30-Day Minimum Rental

Stoddard said Tuesday that the Police Department had explored the idea of 30-day rental minimums to discourage rentals of party houses--properties found mostly on the Balboa Peninsula that are filled with new tenants each week during the summer.

Stoddard said the weekly tenants have gotten rowdier in the last few years, particularly during the Fourth of July holiday.

“Rocks and bottles have been thrown at police cars. . . . We’ve had full, riot-type situations,” Stoddard said.

Burnham said in an interview Tuesday that Newport Beach’s problem with crowd control last summer was second only to that of Huntington Beach, where youths rioted at the pier during Labor Day weekend.

Currently, only the City Council has the power to impose a general curfew, but Burnham said existing law could be revised so that the council could delegate that authority to the police chief under emergency situations.

Burnham said the city also could adopt an ordinance that would allow police to charge owners of party houses for the cost of police services whenever officers respond to a complaint about them.

Burnham said the city also could adopt a noise ordinance that is more restrictive than the state penal code.

The Police Department will review Burnham’s report further before taking the proposals to the City Council, Armstrong said.