Malathion Protesters Swarm Around Governor : Medfly: No one is arrested as 70 demonstrators shout anti-pesticide slogans outside his speech at the Disneyland Hotel.

Gov. George Deukmejian came to the Disneyland Hotel here Thursday to talk tourism, but it was his Mediterranean fruit fly campaign that drew the anger of about 70 demonstrators who marched on the hotel and left only under threat of arrest.

In the most dramatic Orange County demonstration to date on Medfly spraying, a group of malathion critics swarmed around the governor’s car outside the hotel and shouted anti-pesticide chants. No one was arrested.

“This was a big success,” Garden Grove resident Mollie Haines, a protest organizer, said as demonstrators left the hotel grounds after being warned that they would be arrested. “We saw the Duke. He saw our protest, and he knows how mad we are. . . . He knows he and his spraying are not welcome here.”

Deukmejian, who has steadfastly asserted the safety of malathion and the necessity of aerial sprayings, largely avoided the issue and instead used his hotel speech before tourism industry leaders to support a gas tax increase proposed on the June 5 statewide ballot, which would pay for traffic improvements.

The one reference he made to the Medfly came at the expense of his predecessor, former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., who saw his own political career damaged by the Medfly issue in 1981 but has come back as head of the state Democratic Party.

Deukmejian, before his appearance at the annual tourism conference, quipped at a fund-raiser for Assemblyman Frank Hill (R-Whittier): “Shortly after Jerry Brown surfaced, well, you know the Medfly reappeared.”

But it was Deukmejian’s willingness to move ahead with spraying this time around in Southern California that made him the target of county residents at the Disneyland Hotel.

“The Duke’s a Hazard,” read one of the several dozen signs, pointing up assertions by protesters that malathion spraying may pose a health hazard.

The demonstration began calmly at 5:30 p.m. as about 110 local residents gathered on the sidewalk just outside the northwest corner of the hotel parking lot, waving signs, chanting and drawing honks from the street.

But word soon spread in the crowd about a more radical approach, as about 70 protesters surrounded the arriving limousines and tried to find Deukmejian’s car.

“It’s nice to make gestures, but we’ve got (Deukmejian) here in person, and we’ve got to do something to let him know how adamant we are,” Long Beach resident Alan Seaman said.

Russian comedian Yakov Smirnoff, appearing at the governor’s dinner, was one of those whose limousines were surrounded by protesters.

“I didn’t exactly know what it was all about, but that certainly made my entrance memorable,” Smirnoff said later. “ ‘No more spraying!’ I have that down now; it sounds like a new song.”

The bulk of the protesters marched around security guards to the entrance of the hotel, drawing stares and some angry comments from hotel guests. But another group saw a helicopter landing across from the hotel, ran to try to meet it and ended up swarming around Deukmejian’s car as he made his way to the hotel.

“I got right in his face,” said one woman, who bragged to her fellow protesters later that she had been right next to Deukmejian’s closed window.