No Beach Holiday for Police : Patrols: An LAPD detail will be guarding the sand and the boardwalk this Labor Day weekend. The work requires a flair for public relations. And sunburn is a job hazard.

In the exuberant mass of humanity that Venice Beach will become this long Labor Day weekend, any number of children will become lost--as lost as lost can be--and scream for their parents.

And any number of thieves will steal expensively stuffed tote bags from tourists who are preoccupied as they strain to see the latest acrobatic team or Madonna impersonator.

And somewhere in that same crowd will be a specially trained team of the Los Angeles Police Department’s finest, all lathered up (with suntan lotion, that is) and ready for a day at the beach.

While other Los Angeles cops are handcuffing gang members or pushing pencils at desk jobs, members of the Los Angeles Police Department’s 30-member West Los Angeles Beach Detail will be on the sand, or on the boardwalk, policing one of Southern California’s most popular tourist meccas.

It’s a tough job, with the potential for sunburn and all. But heck--somebody’s gotta do it.

“I used to pray for nice weather,” sighs Sgt. Mike O’Donnell, commanding officer of the beach detail. “Now I think--maybe it’ll be overcast. It won’t be quite as busy.”

No such luck. Sunny skies are predicted for much of the long Labor Day weekend, traditionally one of the busiest times of the year at Venice Beach. More than 100,000 people will jam into a mile-long stretch of sand and boardwalk.

“It is kind of a glamorous job,” admits Officer Kelly Shea, senior lead officer for Venice Beach, “but the big problem is crowd control. One person drinking in public, or one bad incident, could escalate into a riot situation.”

O’Donnell and his officers are quick to agree, saying the huge crowds that come on weekends make it nearly impossible to get to where a problem is, to quickly locate a lost child or to collar a thief who has made off with somebody’s vacation money.

Each day this weekend, officers will patrol the area on foot, on mountain bike, by squad car and beach truck, and maybe even on horseback. Because of the large number of visitors expected, the beach detail will get some help from as many as 30 additional officers.

The beach detail patrols from about 11 a.m. until 2:30 the next morning. The beach cops get to wear police-issued shorts and powder-blue police polo shirts, instead of the traditional midnight blue uniforms. Like their more traditional counterparts, though, they carry handguns, handcuffs, police batons and radios.

As O’Donnell and one of his teams surveyed the scene at the heart of the boardwalk last Saturday, a conglomeration of colorfully dressed characters walked to and fro.

Boomboxes used by the various entertainers who work for donations thunder. The ever-present Rastafarian guitar player on roller skates rumbles by, his portable amplifier magnifying the discordant sounds of his timeworn guitar.

Officer Angela McDonald looks one way and then the next, and chuckles. “It gets ridiculous here,” she says. “Too many people.”

McDonald, 24, used to work in South-Central, and says she’ll probably tire of working at the beach before too long. “It’s fun, but it’s a lot of PR,” she says. “It’s a lot different than the streets, of course.”

Her partner, Richard Parks, says he too would like something with a little more excitement somewhere down the line.

“You have your police powers here, but you use them so seldom,” says Parks, 32. “But it’s good to be out and about, talking to people.”

Beach patrol officers spend most of their time watching the crowd, citing people for minor infractions, varying from liquor law violations to using roller skates on bike paths and riding bikes on the boardwalk.

On Saturday, O’Donnell, McDonald and Parks walk up and down the boardwalk for hours at a time, keeping an eye out for lost children and victimized tourists, as well as suspicious activity.

One woman tells them that the man she is with was just beaten up--by his wife. They speak with the man and determine there is nothing they should do. An angry man comes up and says his wallet has been stolen, and he has been looking for an officer for an hour. O’Donnell takes a description of the suspect.

Some illegal vendors are warned or cited, and the officers touch base with the many bazaar operators to see if they’re having problems.

Recently, many Venice Beach merchants have been victimized by “cyclones,” in which a handful of gang members walk into a store, intimidate the employees and walk out with expensive sunglasses and other merchandise. So the officers keep a keen lookout for such activity, and for signs of the dozens of gang members that are here every weekend.

On any given day, beach detail members will cite about 20 people for Municipal Code violations, mostly for drinking or using bikes or skates improperly. But, because of the mythic reputation of Venice Beach as a laid-back place where “anything goes” and because it is a tourist mecca, O’Donnell said beach detail members issue a lot more warnings than actual citations.

The beach cops are told to be lenient in the interest of public relations, said O’Donnell, but with one exception: “We have zero tolerance for alcohol. That can make things get real ugly real quick.”

After having asked one performer to turn her music down earlier in the day, the officers grudgingly perform one of their least favorite, but necessary tasks: Shutting down a popular boardwalk attraction.

This time, it’s a Madonna impersonator. There have been four complaints, so the officers push through the crowd, and in the middle of the song “Vogue,” they turn the music off and politely tell her to leave.

The Madonna look-alike is angry, and tells the crowd it’s the police’s fault. O’Donnell reminds her, privately, that police could shut down her operation any day, and that they tolerate it most of the time “in the spirit of Venice.”

The Madonna impersonator apologizes, several times. And the officers and the sergeant go their separate ways.

Then it’s time to patrol the beach. McDonald and Parks climb into the LAPD’s four-wheel-drive Chevy Blazer, and begin to traverse the sand looking for trouble.

Since it’s illegal to bathe nude on Venice Beach, the two officers say they sometimes have to request that a sunbather, usually a topless woman from another country, cover up the offending area. No nudists are out, but there are enough bathing beauties and hunks to keep both the male and female officer entertained.

“Ohhhh yeahhhh,” Parks says, as a particularly striking woman in a bikini gets ready to lie in the sun. “Sometimes,” he says, “this job is just great.”

Besides Venice Beach, the beach detail also is responsible for patrolling Dockweiler State Beach and the Del Rey Lagoon, just south of the entrance channel to Marina del Rey.

They see someone drinking a beer, and get ready to cite him. But the scofflaw, a German vacationer, speaks very little English. So they pour the beer out and let him go with a warning.

Later, the beach detail officers take a moment to reflect on their jobs. The sun’s glare turns into the beginning of another gorgeous Venice Beach sunset.

“The working conditions are good,” O’Donnell says. “What more could you ask for?”