Local News in Brief : Laguna Beach : Phones to Be Installed After Attacks on Gays

Five pay telephones will be installed in the city’s park and beach areas within the next month, partly in response to the series of assaults against gay men, city Finance Director Dick Reese said Tuesday.

General Telephone Co. agreed to install the telephones on public land at no cost to Laguna Beach.

Heisler Park, where several attacks occurred, will now have two phones about 2 city blocks apart, Reese said.

“We had only one pay telephone in the park and since it’s quite a long park, we felt there was a need for another one in there.”

Deputy Police Chief James Spreine said, “Hopefully, the phones will make it easier for citizens to contact the police so we can make an apprehension quicker or at least scare the perpetrators away.”

Spreine said the phone to be installed at Heisler Park was recommended by a committee task force after the assaults last summer. Because the phones will be on city-owned property, Laguna Beach will receive 15% of the profits from them, Reese said.

The five phones will be installed at a Cliff Drive location in Heisler Park, in the 1800 block of Laguna Canyon Road near the Act 5 parking lot and the new hiring site for day laborers, Riddle Field Park, Main Beach Park and Thalia Beach Park.