Coast Guard Seizures Draw Fire From Boat Owners

Dana Point yachtswoman Jane Mangum has no problem with Coast Guard officials launching a stern new effort to combat drug smuggling on the high seas. But the current “zero tolerance” crackdown, which since mid-April has resulted in the confiscation of more than two dozen craft from Alaska to the Gulf of Mexico, is “excessive,” she said.

“I personally think the Coast Guard has better things to do than confiscate a $2-million boat for one weed,” said Mangum, who with her husband, Ken Mangum, owns the 35-foot yacht Lady Jane Too.

Mangum’s sentiments seem to reflect those of many in the boating community about the policy, which calls for the seizure of U.S.-flagged vessels if even the most minuscule amounts of drugs are discovered on board.

In one highly publicized case, the Ark Royal, a $2.5-million yacht owned by an Irvine firm, was seized in the Yucatan Channel 260 miles southwest of Key West, Fla., after Coast Guard officers who boarded for a routine documents check found one-tenth of an ounce of marijuana in a trash can and a drawer.

And on Saturday, the luxury yacht Monkey Business, which former Democratic presidential candidate Gary Hart once used for a trip to the Bahamas with model Donna Rice, was back in the news when it was confiscated by Coast Guard officers who found 1/28th of an ounce of marijuana aboard.

“According to ‘zero tolerance,’ if we find enough to test positive it’s enough to seize the vessel,” said Dan Vogeley of the Coast Guard.

The Monkey Business was boarded 22 miles northwest of Bimini for a routine search and was escorted back to a Coast Guard base in Miami Beach.

“Zero tolerance” is designed “to send a message to boaters that no amount of illegal drugs is acceptable,” Coast Guard spokesman Brad Smith said.

But many boaters in Southern California and across the nation complain that authorities are wasting precious resources at a time when the Coast Guard has been forced to reduce essential patrol and emergency service due to Reagan Administration budget cutbacks.

In interviews conducted in Newport Beach, Dana Point and elsewhere along the Southern California coast, virtually all boaters said they opposed the use of drugs aboard ship and favored hard-hitting enforcement efforts against drug smugglers. But most added that they also strongly opposed the inequity of boats being confiscated for the seizure of illicit substances so small in quantity that it would result in a mere ticket on land.

Ken Mangum said there are so few Coast Guard vessels along 200 miles of Southern California coastline that it takes hours to get assistance when one needs it.

“I just think they have more important things to do than searching boats for insignificant amounts of drugs,” he said Saturday.

Indeed, the Coast Guard is so financially strapped this year, said spokesman Nicholas Sandifer, that it has eliminated routine search and rescue patrols, closed 53 facilities and retired two aging vessels. What’s more, said Sandifer in a telephone interview from Washington, the Coast Guard has cut back its routine drug patrols by more than 50%.

“We are out there, but less,” Sandifer said. With the “zero tolerance” program, he added, “what we are doing is getting a lot of light and generating a lot of ink and TV time.”

Another Dana Point Harbor boat owner, Monte Beach, questioned the power of the government.

“There’s so many restrictions on us to own a boat,” Beach said. “Now they can take it away so easily. They can come aboard your boat and take it away from you. No one should have that kind of power.”

The Mangums, Beach and John Ashmore, a San Marino man who keeps his boat at a Dana Point Harbor slip, agreed that answers to an increasing drug problem in America have to be found. But they felt that the “zero tolerance” program was excessive.

“I think the whole problem is where do we draw the line?” Ashmore said. “It has to be some place but not in that area. Obviously if it is contraband and they want to sell it to someone, they should react. But for a few joints, that borders on the ridiculous.”

On the West Coast, Coast Guard officials have thus far seized eight boats, turning them over to U.S. Customs officials to assess fines or to institute forfeiture proceedings. Customs spokesman John Miller said Friday that five of the boats have been returned to their owners and that forfeiture will be sought in the other cases.

Even though the Ark Royal was released after the owner paid $1,600 in fines, the government intends to keep vessels, Miller said, unless owners “could not conceivably have known (drug use) was happening and have demonstrated efforts to discourage their crews from using drugs.”

Angry Petition Drive

“Zero tolerance,” which has led to an angry petition drive among Gulf of Mexico boaters and stiff criticism from national civil liberties groups, has also stirred a wave of resentment--and even some changes in plans--among those in Southern California boating circles.

Dr. Joseph Tangredi had organized a party this weekend for 40 people on his 60-foot, $1-million motor yacht moored at the Kona Marina in San Diego. But Tangredi, a professor of surgery from the University of Nevada, said he canceled the gala because of “zero tolerance.”

“I’m afraid . . . they will hold me responsible for the criminal intent of someone else,” he said. “We are not law enforcement (officers).”

“It’s ridiculous,” said Judi Oergel, owner of the 50-foot houseboat Have A Party, docked in Marina del Rey. “If you get arrested for drunk driving, they don’t confiscate your car.”

“I don’t smoke pot and . . . it’s silly not to have all your senses when you are on a boat,” echoed Rand Moffatt, 29, as she sunned herself on the deck of the racing boat Defiance, also in Marina del Rey. “But I think confiscating a boat because someone has (small quantities of) drugs or liquor on it is ludicrous.”

Ken Guyer, a San Diego charter skipper, said that “zero tolerance” takes “the word pleasure out of pleasure boating. . . . I wonder how many drug dealers get by while they (the Coast Guard) stop the pleasure boaters?”

Issue of Personal Privacy

Many boaters also raised the issues of personal privacy and due process, noting that the Coast Guard can board any U.S.-flagged ship for routine checks at any time, even in international waters.

“They need a warrant to go into your house,” said Jeanine Dryer, who owns two boats in San Diego. “Then it should be the same here.”

At the 500-member Balboa Yacht Club in Newport Beach, several yacht and sailboat owners agreed. While all expressed a desire to see drug trafficking stopped, they said impounding an owner’s vessel on the basis of a minor drug find was going too far.

“Impounding a $2.4-million ship because of 1/10th of an ounce of marijuana is a bit much,” said Stan Bunker, 45, a marketing supervisor from Newport Beach who owns a 26-foot sailboat.

Bunker said the law was especially harsh because it does not take into account that boat owners like himself have little control over what their crew members bring aboard.

“Somebody could get on my boat with a joint in his pocket, and I wouldn’t know,” Bunker said. “That’s a pretty scary thought.”

John Ballew, a Laguna Beach architect who owns a 39-foot yacht, said he tries to hire crews he can trust but that there is always the possibility “one will screw up.” Ballew said he particularly worries when he allows his boat to be used in the annual race to Ensenada, Mexico.

Responsibility Question

“I don’t think you should be held responsible for the actions of every person on your boat,” Ballew said.

Fellow architect William Blurock, who owns a 50-foot sloop, said the “zero tolerance” policy assumes a boat owner is guilty until proven innocent. But Blurock said he did not object to the policy so long as boat owners are given speedy hearings on their cases.

On the other hand, some, like Eddy DiRuscio, who manages the six-boat fleet at Davey’s Locker sportfishing landing in Newport Beach, said the crackdown would deter the use of drugs on boats.

“It’s welcome,” DiRuscio said. “It just makes for a much safer environment.”

DiRuscio said local boating enthusiasts had been advised by the Coast Guard a year ago that the tough new anti-drug enforcement policy would be implemented. Skippers have therefore had ample time, he said, to make sure their crews clean up their act.

Tom Moody, a Laguna Niguel teacher who keeps a small fishing boat in Newport Harbor, said he was in favor of anything that helps deter drug use.

“The drug problem is so big that I think we have to do anything we can at this point, especially the way it’s being imported” aboard boats and ships, Moody said Friday as he prepared to launch his boat.

Charter Boat Confusion

“Zero tolerance” has also led to confusion and concerns among charter boat owners, including Jack Jurian, whose San Pedro-based Buccaneer-Mardi Gras Cruises features dinner cruises on a square-rigged 18th-Century pirate ship.

Jurian said that his skipper, an ex-Coast Guard officer garbed in a pirate’s costume, “enforces the rule of no drug use on the boat. But that doesn’t mean somebody might not have something on them. . . . Do we have to search everyone that goes on that vessel?”

Federal officials who were interviewed said the stringent seizure policy does not apply to passenger boats such as ocean liners or fishing charters.

“We will not seize them under the ‘zero tolerance’ because of the nature of their business, taking large groups of people on board,” Coast Guard spokesman Smith said. “However, criminal charges could be filed personally against people” with drugs.

According to Customs spokesman Dennis Murphy, the Coast Guard’s program is the most visible of a wide-ranging series of anti-drug measures approved by Atty. Gen. Edwin M. Meese III and in effect since mid-March.

At border crossings across the nation, Customs officials have seized 1,120 vehicles and made 640 arrests of people “with any amount of drugs on their possession.” But when cars are seized, Murphy said, “it doesn’t make as much of a splash” as with an expensive boat.

Times staff writers Jim Carlton in Newport Beach and Raymond L. Sanchez in San Diego contributed to this article.