Newport Beach : Statue of Liberty Bust Vanishes at Restaurant

A replica of the head of the Statue of Liberty was stolen from the America Restaurant and Bar in Newport Beach over the weekend, prompting the restaurant owner on Monday to call the culprits un-American.

The 8-foot-long, 500-pound fiberglass bust was last seen Saturday sitting outside the restaurant in the 4200 block of Martingale Way, ready to be placed on the roof in time for the unveiling this week of an evening dine-and-dance club, owner John Bellamy said Monday.

“We placed it outside and were getting ready to place the crown and lights around it so it could look fantastic when people walked under it,” Bellamy said. “It had to take about five guys with a truck to take it.”

Newport police said they had searched but did not find the head on Monday after an anonymous caller told the owner of the restaurant that he had seen it on the 500 block of Fernleaf Avenue in Corona del Mar, Sgt. Todd Wilkinson said.

Bellamy said that the replica is worth $5,000 and that there are only two in the country. The other one was fully crowned and has been placed near the dance floor in the restaurant already, he said.

He said he had placed the second one outside the restaurant because he believed nobody would take it.

“It’s like burning the flag,” a distraught Bellamy said of the theft.

Bellamy said he plans to go ahead and open his new club called America After Dark, where the opening night theme will be “It Can Only Happen in America.”