HUNTINGTON BEACH : Parade Planners Bar Youngest Marchers

The thousands of spectators at today’s annual Fourth of July parade can expect a flashier and snappier event than in previous years, organizers say, but it will also have a share of controversy.

For the first time in the parade’s 68 years, for example, the parade will not include young children marching up Main Street.

That change is part of organizers’ efforts to sharpen and speed the parade. The 15-member parade executive board agreed this year to limit groups to 50 members, bar undecorated flatbed trucks and enforce for the first time a longstanding rule that children younger than 8 not be allowed to march, Bill Reed, city public information director, said.

Faced with a large number of applicants, the board--accepting the advice of its Lynwood-based event coordinator--agreed to stiffen its entry standards, Reed said.

Enough entry applications were received to put together a six-hour event, he said, but the board pared the parade down to two hours.

Children of all ages will be allowed to ride on floats or other vehicles, but the younger ones may not march, board chairwoman Donna Cross said.

Several groups of young children, including baton twirlers who have been a parade mainstay in recent years, were turned away, she said.

Young marchers are mainly barred because “we don’t want to have 3-, 4- and 5-year-old children walking two miles uphill in the hot sun,” she said. “Last year, we had irate mothers calling (after the event), saying why did we make their child walk two miles in that hot sun. . . . My biggest concern is I want to see the children protected.”

Also, until last week it appeared that an Afghan rebel leader whom Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Lomita) invited to participate would be barred. Originally, city officials had announced that Gen. Ramatullah Safi would not be allowed to ride with Rohrabacher on a float because he might pose a security risk.

Police officials and some City Council members feared that Safi, a leading member of one of seven groups fighting the communist government of Kabul, might attract protesters opposed to him.

However, after police checked into Safi’s background through the State Department, the general, whom Rohrabacher met during a visit to Afghanistan last year, was cleared to appear in the parade, Reed said.

Meanwhile, two YMCA youth groups had accused parade organizers of blocking their bid to participate in the parade, as they have done for the last several years. But the leader of the YMCA Indian Guides and Indian Princesses backed off after acknowledging that they had not provided proof of insurance for the vehicle they had planned to use, as parade officials require, Reed said.