HUNTINGTON BEACH : Citations Against Gadfly Are Dropped

The district attorney’s office Monday dropped charges against George Arnold, a City Council candidate and gadfly who had been cited for littering and obstructing a law-enforcement officer.

Arnold, 61, whose barbed speeches have become a regular feature at council meetings, was cleared of all three charges against him at Municipal Court in Westminster on the condition he pay $50 in city court costs by Nov. 15.

“This is the third time I beat ‘em,” said an exultant Arnold, referring to previous citations accusing him of selling T-shirts without a business license and listing a false address on his driver’s license. The city eventually waived those charges.

This time, Arnold was accused of tossing cigarette butts onto the ground and refusing to tell police officers his name and address.

Dan Cook, the public defender representing Arnold, said that two police officers wrote Arnold a littering citation after Arnold threw a smoldering cigarette onto the pavement. Then the officers asked him his name and address, Cook said, but Arnold, who is well known among officers and downtown residents, refused to provide them.

“They know my name,” Arnold said Wednesday.

That act of defiance prompted the obstruction charge against him, Cook said.

Arnold then complained to the officers that they were wrongfully harassing him, Cook said, and then he flicked another cigarette onto the pavement and challenged them to cite him again, which they did.

The district attorney, at the city’s request, agreed to revoke the charges in exchange for the payment of court costs, Cook said.

Wednesday’s resolution represents only the latest chapter in Arnold’s continuing tussles with city police. In May, he was mistakenly jailed on a bench warrant stemming from his citation in the T-shirt selling case.