Trouble in Paradise : Campers Find Criminal Element Exists at McGrath

Becky Sagnimeni, a longtime Oregon resident now living in the Los Angeles area, took her first Southern California camping trip recently. She and her young children stayed on the Ventura coast at McGrath State Beach, an otherworldly place of mocha-colored sand dunes topped with dollops of flowering ice plants.

“I was impressed,” she says.

Then Fright Night began. At an adjacent campsite, more than a dozen rowdy teen-agers were drinking large quantities of beer and singing along with the strident music of the Sex Pistols. The teens also had built a huge bonfire with 2-by-4s smuggled into the campground in a pickup truck.

Unable to sleep because of the nonstop racket, Sagnimeni looked out her tent at 1:30 a.m. and saw flames from the bonfire licking the tops of the trees. “Then I heard a girl scream, ‘You’re burning down the damn woods!’ and I was really frightened.”

The bonfire finally died down, the teens crawled into their tents and peace returned to the campground. But Fright Night wasn’t over by any means.

While Sagnimeni slept, an organized band of thieves went on a wilderness crime spree. All around her, campsites were being robbed of items ranging from coolers to propane stoves. Striking about 2 a.m., the thieves hit 18 of McGrath’s 178 campsites. Rangers speculate that they used the isolated nature trail as their base--the next morning, Rangers found piles of food there, the contents of several coolers.

“When you went camping in Oregon,” Sagnimeni says, “you felt protected. You certainly didn’t expect to get ripped off. But the atmosphere here is so hostile. I was fearful.”

As urbanization slowly devours Southern California, getting away from it all has become more and more difficult. Once-remote parks are no longer outside the reach of urban problems. And the closer the park to L.A., the more vulnerable it is. State rangers used to caution campers about bears. Now it’s two-legged beasts.

“Once a year we have a (large-scale) robbery like this where they pick off camping gear,” says Ranger Ron Munson. “Usually, it’s just cooler thefts, kids cruising for beers. It’s so common that the crime report we file has a box to check for cooler theft. Our advice: Lock everything up at night.”

And what about the party animals? “State parks cater to this kind of camping,” Munson says ruefully. “The kids want to roll out of their cars and party. If you want to avoid this, you have to put a pack on your back and go where they can’t bring their beer in.”

It wasn’t coincidence that Fright Night took place on a Friday. “Fridays are the worst,” Munson says. Campers, mostly teens, he says, like to blow off steam in the standard tradition of TGIF. “Ninety percent of our enforcement here,” Munson says, “is for minors in possession of alcohol and disturbing others.”

When the campground awoke after Fright Night, there were plenty of angry campers. The people next to Sagnimeni had been kept awake by the party and victimized by the thieves, losing a double-burner Coleman stove. After borrowing Sagnimeni’s for breakfast, they drove to a nearby Target store to buy a new stove--one of the advantages of being at a campground that’s only a mile from civilization.

All morning, camp host Joe McNinch, a retiree who lives in a trailer with his wife, was grilled by irate campers. Where were the rangers? “They go home at midnight.” How did the robbers get in? “The guard kiosk closes at 11 p.m. and anyone can drive in.” Why didn’t he tell the teens to quiet down? “What can I really do?”

Only two rangers are at the campground on Fridays. Despite a 30% jump in visitors to state parks over the past few years, Munson says, staffing has not increased because of budget cutbacks. “That’s why you see a decline in service to the public,” he says.

When rangers do break up parties, they usually don’t expel the participants until the following morning. “It’s so hard in America to kick them out,” McNinch explains. “If they’re picked up for drunk driving, they’d sue the state or the rangers.”

McNinch is also frustrated by the failure of the rangers to apprehend thieves. “Nobody ever catches anybody,” he says. “Do police ever catch anybody? It’s petty theft.”

Even McNinch hasn’t been immune. “They steal everything of mine that’s not locked up or chained down,” he says. “I camped for years and never lost anything. The first week I was here, they got my lawn chair.”

These days, a totally pleasant experience in an urban campground often depends on luck--who you get for neighbors, where your campsite is located. Randy Fox and Pam Summers of Chino were situated in a clump of trees about 100 feet from the party and weren’t disturbed by the noise. And while campsites on either side of them were robbed, theirs wasn’t. Untouched by anxiety, they were able to loll by their recreational vehicle during the day and take leisurely strolls to the beach at dusk.

“We’ve been here three times and love it,” Fox says.

“It’s so peaceful,” Summers adds.

Nuisances aside, McGrath is one of the best campgrounds in the L.A. area. Less than an hour from the Valley on the Ventura Freeway, it is the southernmost of the four Channel Coast State Beaches. A high-usage park (all of the campsites are already booked in July and August), it has nonetheless managed to retain an unspoiled quality. This is partly because of its proximity to the Santa Clara Estuary Preserve and because of a stretch of beach that is not swimmer-friendly.

Because riptides and sleeper waves are strong enough to drag adults away, rangers don’t encourage swimming. As a result, the beach at McGrath doesn’t attract a crowd.

But don’t expect a totally pristine environment. Cigarette butts and empty beer cans litter the beach and the campground. Boom boxes and planes from a nearby airport intrude on the solitude. And offshore oil rigs, along with a smoke stack at a power plant south of the beach, spoil the view.

For youngsters, however, McGrath is an outdoor paradise. Peter Sereno, 12, felt like Tom Sawyer during a weekend at the park. He played baseball and flew a dragon kite on the large dirt field by his campsite. He explored the dunes and even managed to avoid poison oak during a hike on the nature trail. About midnight, with a full moon to guide him, he caught spawn-happy grunion in the surf.

All the fun almost made him forget about his bike. The day before--on his birthday, no less--it was stolen off the back of his father’s car . . . at a Valley shopping center. His father bought him a new one on the way to McGrath, and there it stood most of the time, securely chained to a tree.