20,000 Greet Dawn’s Early Light

Bleary eyed and yawning, Mara Brown put it all into perspective.

“I slept with at least 2,000 men tonight,” said the 26-year-old from Encino, who celebrated the Fourth of July with an estimated 20,000 others--men, women and children--at a pre-dawn fireworks display near the Santa Monica Pier. “I never woke up with so many people in my life.”

Brown and her friends, Melody and Casey Doff, ages 23 and 28, arrived when police opened the beach parking lot at 3 a.m. Like most of the beach crowd, they secured a spot and dozed until 5 a.m., when the bombs started bursting in air, ushering in a brilliant sunny morning.

“It seems like a crazy thing to do,” she said. “We didn’t expect there would be so many people.”

Elsewhere in the Los Angeles area, there were the more traditional parades, fireworks displays, political gatherings, picnics and barbecues.

At Pan Pacific Park on 3rd Street, police arrested one person after a child was struck by an illegal bottle-rocket that caused a minor injury to her leg. In Rosemead, fireworks were blamed for a house fire. Generally, however, the celebrating was “a lot quieter than it has been in years,” according to a Los Angeles County Fire Department spokesman.

Quieter at the Beach

Peace reigned among 90,000 at Newport Beach, where rock- and bottle-throwing teen-agers clashed with police for five hours last year, resulting in 150 arrests.

Santa Monica officials, who had estimated that half the number of revelers would turn out for Saturday’s show, billed it as a “By the Dawn’s Early Light” salute to the National Anthem. After increasing violence and crowds turned last year’s display into a rumble, an uneasy City Council adopted the early morning option in May as a means to save the 27-year-old tradition.

By moving the fireworks to the morning, officials hoped to attract a family oriented crowd. City officials and police said the crowd, in size and age, was unexpected.

“That so many teens would show is surprising,” Police Lt. Roy McGinnis said. “Maybe that’s because I’m so old.”

During the morning, police made one arrest and saw few disturbances, McGinnis said. That compares to last year’s total of 59 arrests, about 200 fights and the shooting death of a 16-year-old Latino gang member. In recent years, the nighttime shows had attracted upward of 500,000 people.

“This was the easiest one I’ve worked,” said McGinnis, a veteran of 13 Independence Day events. “Obviously, it was a lot safer.”

Casey Doff, whose birthday coincides with the nation’s, quipped that the crowd was actually there to celebrate the more recent landmark.

“I requested this,” she said. “There are going to be fireworks.”

Because the show was successful, there may be fireworks for future July 4ths, City Councilman Dennis Zane said. The councilman, who cast the lone vote against the early morning show, said he is pleased by the turnout and demeanor of the crowd.

“I figured it would be a complete failure or the start of a new tradition,” he said. “Either way, you had to be here.”

Although he came out being skeptical, Zane said he could see continuing the event “by the dawn’s early light.”

Many of the people who attended said publicity about the show generated their interest.

Buena Park resident Jennifer Crouch, 17, and her boyfriend, Darrin Newsted, 20, said they never knew about the city’s display until this year. Crouch said she did not mind getting up early.

‘A Neat Idea’

“It’s a neat idea if it can stop bad things from happening,” she said. “Everybody’s allowed to have fun, but they also can get out of hand.”

Crouch said she will come back next year “if there’s nothing better to do.”

Finishing a two-year stay in the United States, Israelis Nir Lilo, 25, and Ayala Lyalon, 21, caught the show with an American friend, Laura Price, 24. The trio spent all Friday evening drinking coffee in preparation.

Lyalon said fireworks shows--always held at night--also mark the Israeli independence day, Yom Haatzmaoot. The earlier display was “great, but sort of crazy,” she said.

“What could be more American than to have it at 5 a.m., just to make it hard on people,” Price said.

But Craig Stiffler liked the time.

“We’re usually busy in the evening so this way we got it out of the way in the morning,” he said. Stiffler admitted that he did have some trouble getting the family motivated at 12:30 a.m. to reach the beach from their Chino home.

Not everyone was thrilled with the outcome. Police logged about 100 complaint calls by mid-morning Saturday despite the city’s use of “quiet fireworks.”

Zane said the 35-minute show, which cost the city about $15,000, was “a wonderful way to start the day.”

Zane contrasted the event with last year, first likening the difference to “night and day.” But after a moment’s reflection, he added, “Maybe that’s dawn and dusk.”