Balboa Summer Became a Walk on the Mild Side

Nary an empty parking space could be found Sunday on the Balboa Peninsula as pencil-thin bodies in skimpy swimsuits and shorts whisked past on bicycles and children lined up at B&J; By the Sea for ice cream cones and sodas on the last official weekend of summer.

But neither were there traffic jams or rowdiness in this summer season of high police profiles.

“People see us and think twice,” said Newport Beach Police Officer Gary Traina as he strolled through the parking lot at the foot of the Newport Pier on Sunday.

Yet as the bumper-to-bumper tourist season ended this Labor Day weekend, those who live and work on Balboa Peninsula gave the city’s summerlong traffic offensive mixed reviews.

Some said the unprecedented steps of using checkpoints and liberally ticketing unwanted cruisers kept traffic to a minimum along some stretches of the peninsula, particularly on weekends.

But others, including merchants and restaurateurs who say business was off markedly this season, said the checkpoints only compounded the peninsula’s annual summertime traffic troubles.

They complained that while the checkpoints may have kept out most of the troublemakers, they also discouraged paying customers from frequenting Balboa’s business core, the Balboa Pier-Fun Zone area.

Because of a large influx of cruisers this summer, police said, they had no choice but to establish checkpoints, mostly on weekends, to limit access to the narrow finger of land that sweeps south from Newport Pier. The area has long been a warm-weather magnet for young drivers who gather on the peninsula’s main artery, Balboa Boulevard, and this season was no different, prompting police to go on the offensive.

With the City Council’s blessings, police established checkpoints at 8th Street--midway on the peninsula--and at Balboa Pier. They also issued dozens of tickets for cruising violations, mostly to motorists who passed through the checkpoints repeatedly on the same night.

Police said their tough traffic stance this summer also helped prevent a replay of the 1986 Fourth of July melee, a rock- and bottle-throwing free-for-all that led to 159 arrests. In an impressive show of force this past July 4, more than 200 officers were deployed along the peninsula and elsewhere in the city, a move that kept problems to a minimum.

“A lot of folks are telling us they enjoy coming here more now as opposed to years past because we’re more visible,” Officer Traina said. “They can come down down with their families without any hassles.”

“It’s been real mellow all summer,” agreed lifeguard Rob Wyatt, 26, from his tower perch overlooking the body surfers at the Wedge, Newport Beach’s legendary surfing spot.

Traditionally, Labor Day weekend has not been a volatile holiday in Newport Beach. Many renters, particularly those from out of state, have gone home. College students, for the most part, have returned to classes. And the atmosphere is less party than one of resignation that summer is over.

But for year-round peninsula residents, Labor Day is cause for celebration because it signals the coming of quieter days and, for now, the end of the checkpoints.

“All of us suffered a great deal of inconvenience from those roadblocks,” said Bill Wren, president of the Peninsula Point Homeowners Assn. and a Balboa resident for nearly two decades. But Wren agreed that “in the long run it is the only way to protect what we have.”

Roger Riley, another longtime peninsula resident, said cruisers do pose a threat to the area’s charm.

“I didn’t move here to listen to faulty mufflers and high-powered stereos passing my house every few minutes,” said Riley, a Newport Beach dentist.

One Balboa Boulevard resident who lives near 10th Street viewed the checkpoints differently--from his living room window. He complained of exhaust from long lines of idling cars only a few steps from his front door. Because of the long waits, he said motorists “cranked up their music and partied in the street.”

The checkpoints, he said, “simply backed the traffic up a few blocks,” sparing some peninsula residents but “dumping the problem on the doorsteps of others.”

Declining to identify himself, the angry homeowner added, “If they want to set up checkpoints, put one in Costa Mesa.”

This summer was not the first time Newport Beach police have used checkpoints to control traffic in the densely populated city. In the 1960s, the tactic was used at the entrance to Balboa Island, then a popular Easter-break destination for college students, Newport Beach Police Capt. Jim Jacobs said.

It was late last spring, when peninsula residents complained about increasing congestion and noise from cruisers, that the City Council gave police the authority to set up checkpoints at night as needed, Jacobs said.

“This is nothing inherently wrong with young people driving around looking for other young people,” said Jacobs, the police department’s traffic coordinator. “But when they start tying up traffic, making it difficult for residents and emergency vehicles to get through, we have to act.”

The 8th Street checkpoint is what Jacobs called a “turn-around stop.” Those living beyond the stop or en route to a specific business in the Balboa Pier area were waved through; all others were told to turn around.

The pier checkpoint was used mostly last spring. Drivers were routed off Balboa Boulevard through the pier parking lot. Non-residents were warned if they passed through the checkpoint more than once in a two-hour period they would be ticketed or risk having their car impounded. To make vehicle identification quicker, license plate numbers were entered into a portable computer at the checkpoint.

And if traffic problems persist this fall, Jacobs said, police will use the checkpoints again.

“It’s the type of problem that as soon as you think you’ve licked it, it jumps up and bites you again,” he said. “It is still a major irritant.”

Most realtors said the checkpoints had no effect on summer rentals. Vacancies, they said, were hard to find between June and August.

Linda Jenkins, whose family has come to Newport from Glendale for the past 10 years, said she welcomed the increased police presence on the peninsula. After 1986’s Fourth of July melee, she said she and her husband considered going elsewhere with their three children.

“But this summer has been the best yet,” Jenkins said, watching her children on the Fun Zone merry-go-round one recent weekday. “I feel safer, and the people who are around here are friendly . . . No more spiked hairdos, or souped-up cars. It’s great.”

Todd Smithson, a UCLA graduate student who with two friends rented a three-bedroom house on Balboa Boulevard near 14th Street, said the checkpoints have only been a problem when the beer runs out.

“When it’s time to hit the liquor store, it’s faster to walk six blocks than drive,” Smithson said. “A man could get real thirsty waiting in those lines.”

Hungry is a better word for peninsula merchants and restaurant owners, who generally blame one of the area’s coolest summers in recent memory for a 5% to 10% sales slumps this season.

But some business people also say that the checkpoints discouraged customers from venturing onto the peninsula. On some nights, cars stopped at the 8th Street checkpoint were backed up two miles, and waits of up to a half hour or longer were not uncommon.

“Sure, it hurt business,” said Annie Benecke, manager of Milano’s Italian Restaurant near Balboa Pier. “People who come down here once and sit in that line just don’t come back,” she said, adding, “Would you?”

Jack Kofdarali, owner of Bal Harbor Liquor and Deli in the 500 block of East Balboa Boulevard, agreed. “My store is open until 11 at night. When there’s no roadblock, business is brisk. When there is one, boom, my customers slow to a trickle.”

Most merchants, however, say they welcome the police presence because it discourages transients who, they say, scare off families and the elderly.

“No question that it was an inconvenience for everybody,” said Doug Cavanaugh, owner of two peninsula restaurants and vice president of the Balboa Improvement Assn., a local business group. “But it has also rid the area of a lot of roughnecks who claimed the pier and Fun Zone as their turf.”

Times staff writer Lonn Johnston contributed to this story.