Police Ready for Spring Rites at Beaches

The invasion has begun; the shock troops have arrived. Like the ritualistic return of swallows to Mission San Juan Capistrano, students on spring break have started their yearly trek to the beaches of Orange County.

But police in beach cities said they are ready this year for the Easter week onslaught, as well as the weeks and months to follow. If needed, officers said, they will work 12-hour shifts and skip days off as they patrol the beaches on foot and on three-wheeled motorcycles.

Officials in Huntington Beach, Newport Beach and Laguna Beach said warm weather has spurred a sharp increase of beachgoers this week. And those crowds may just be a hint of what’s to come.

The University of California’s nine campuses ended their spring vacations last week; most high schools and colleges in the area are scheduled for five-day vacations in mid-April.

Despite the large beach crowds, police in Orange County’s coastal cities reported no major difficulties other than traffic congestion.

In Laguna Beach, “there were more young people in town this week, but they’re all well behaved,” said Police Chief Neil Purcell, adding that he expects larger crowds next week.

“Basically, in Laguna Beach we get a lot of people, but we don’t have the problems of Newport or Huntington Beach.”

Newport Beach police spokesman Kent Stoddard said the department has “been busy, like any sunny summer day.”

“We’ve had no problem with spring break for several years. We don’t mobilize for it anywhere near the way we do for the Fourth of July.”

Huntington Beach Police Sgt. Jeff Cope said his department expects “a higher level of enforcement on the beach” as summer approaches.

“With the warm weather, obviously the people do come out,” he said.

They came out July 4 in Newport Beach, when police arrested about 100 people during a disturbance in which youths threw rocks and bottles at officers patrolling Seashore Drive on the Balboa Peninsula.

And during the Op Pro Surfing Championships, a riot broke out Aug. 31 at the Huntington Beach Pier among the 90,000 spectators, some of whom threw rocks and bottles at officers, stormed a lifeguard station and set police vehicles on fire.

Now, both of those cities are gearing up to prevent similar incidents this year with a combination of advance planning, a higher police profile and, in Newport’s case, a battery of proposed city laws designed to increase police powers.

In Newport Beach, Stoddard said, police plan to have all available officers patrolling the streets and beach during the summer and will be prepared to call on nearby police departments in Costa Mesa and Huntington Beach for assistance before outbreaks of violence occur.

Stoddard said his city has drawn troublesome crowds during the Fourth of July holiday “for the past two or three years, with last year being the worst.”

Newport Beach police intend to enforce laws against cruising with the help of a computer that, after being fed the license numbers of passing vehicles, records the number of times the cars pass along a certain traffic route.

Additionally, Newport Beach City Atty. Robert H. Burnham is preparing three ordinances suggested by Police Chief Arb Campbell for approval by the City Council. The first would allow Campbell to declare a general curfew in emergency situations. Another would bill property owners for the cost of responding to calls involving rented houses. The third would provide for strict enforcement of municipal noise laws.

A 2-year-old curfew law requires minors in Newport Beach to be off the streets by 11 p.m. The new ordinance would allow Campbell to declare a curfew anywhere in the city anytime he believed that the police might be unable to handle a developing disturbance, Burnham said.

With police-marked four-wheel-drive and other all-terrain vehicles cruising the beach and a 60% increase in the number of officers assigned there, Huntington Beach will be “using a high-profile type of enforcement” during the coming months, Cope said.

Along with 10 beach liaison officers--typically high school instructors with “quasi-police powers” who have been trained to patrol the beaches--16 uniformed officers, two sergeants and a lieutenant will be used to keep order on the beach, Cope said.

“We will definitely be going down and try to dispel a recurrence” of last year’s riot, he said, adding that 2.3 miles of Bolsa Chica State Beach, where beachgoers have been allowed to drink alcohol, has recently been incorporated into Huntington Beach, where alcohol is not permitted.

City officials have agreed to play host to the surfing championships again this summer during the first week in August but have changed the dates so the event does not coincide with Labor Day weekend.

“The Op contest itself is something the city wants to have--it’s a very positive thing,” said Richard Barnard, an assistant to the city administrator.

“The rioting is not a yearly thing that goes on. Last year just got out of hand.”