COUNTYWIDE : Beach Cities Brace for Spring Break

The sometimes rowdy ritual known as spring break gets under way this weekend as youthful crowds celebrating a week off from school are expected descend on the wary beach communities of Newport, Huntington and Laguna.

Officials of the beach cities say they are doing nothing to try to attract teen-agers during spring break. In fact, officials are stressing that police enforcement will be strict.

In Huntington Beach, police are planning to set up a sobriety checkpoint tonight at an undisclosed location.

“This sobriety checkpoint is timed with this year’s spring break in an effort to send a message that drinking and driving will not be tolerated in the Huntington Beach area,” said Lyle Whitten, public affairs officer for the California Highway Patrol.

Whitten noted that a stricter drunk-driving law is now in effect, under which an adult with an 0.08% blood-alcohol level is considered legally intoxicated. The old standard was .1%.

Teen-agers can be charged with driving under the influence with just a 0.05% blood-alcohol level, Whitten said.

“This means that with only two or three drinks within two hours, a teen-ager could be legally intoxicated.”

Huntington Beach Mayor Thomas J. Mays has said young people are welcome to enjoy the city’s nine miles of beaches, but he warned that drinking is not allowed on the beaches and that mounted police patrols “will strictly enforce the law.”

In Laguna Beach, additional officers will patrol the downtown and beach areas. Sgt. Mike Hall said that police expect “summer days crowds. The only difference is it’s during a week in spring.”

In Newport Beach, officials predicted that up to 25,000 spring-break visitors are expected in the Balboa Peninsula area alone.

Newport Beach Police Sgt. Andy Gonis said his department would use more personnel during the next two weeks.

Gonis said police will be prepared to halt incoming traffic on Balboa Boulevard from 15th Street to the tip of the peninsula to ensure passage of emergency vehicles.

But for the most part, beefing up for spring break is no more complicated than getting ready for an average, sunny summer day, Gonis said, and is considerably easier to prepare for than the July 4th weekend.

“To tell you the truth, there’s mixed sentiment,” said Newport Beach marine safety officer Craig Farmer. “Really, Easter week is the start of the whole pick up.”

For weeks now, Farmer said, workers have been tuning lifeguard boat engines, painting Jeeps and positioning lifeguard towers. By the weekend, the 10 to 15 lifeguards now sprinkled throughout the beach will swell to about 60, he said.

And, according to Farmer, they’ll have their work cut out for them.

Swimmers heady with the scent of spring will commonly sprint to an ocean still tingling with the chill of winter, without giving a second thought as to how the shock of cold water will feel on an out-of-shape body, Farmer said.

“In their excitement they go charging into the water and diving in,” he said. “They jump and dive and do flips into the water.”