Events Canceled in Wake of Sporadic O.C. Incidents : Reaction: Although disturbances pale in contrast to L.A., officials call off weekend gatherings just in case.

Sporadic lawlessness in a handful of Orange County cities prompted cautious officials on Friday to cancel weekend events as thousands of federal troops poured into local Marine Corps bases in anticipation of being sent to riot-torn Los Angeles.

In the aftermath of the Los Angeles police beating trial verdicts, law enforcement agencies reported no more than a dozen incidents across the county, including the attempted firebombings of a police substation in Huntington Beach and the Costa Mesa office of the state Department of Motor Vehicles.

Although damage was minor and the disturbances paled in contrast to Los Angeles, scores of businesses limited their hours Friday, and several events were canceled in Santa Ana, specifically Cinco de Mayo celebrations and an anti-crime march through a gang neighborhood.

“It would be foolhardy in light of what is going on in L.A. to have these outdoor public events,” said Orange County Board of Supervisors Chairman Roger R. Stanton, whose district includes Santa Ana. “We don’t want any potential for that to occur in Orange County.”

Ripples of confusion and disorder first spilled into Orange County Thursday as rioting swept through Los Angeles.

Local college students held peaceful protests, commuters stayed home and grade school teachers comforted pupils worried about the violence. A rash of minor arson fires in three Orange County cities and some disturbances in Santa Ana began late Thursday night.

But by Friday afternoon, a hush had descended over the county. No curfew has been necessary and only one arrest has been made so far. The California Highway Patrol reported that northbound traffic from Orange County was unusually light during rush hour on the major highways into Los Angeles.

What activity there was centered on charitable efforts to supply medical personnel, law enforcement officers and food to the riot-stricken areas, where police and the National Guard are gaining an upper hand for the first time in three days of urban unrest.

Several vans of volunteer nurses and medical technicians from Orange County hospitals headed north to help relieve the exhausted staff at Daniel Freeman Hospital in Inglewood, where all the emergency room beds have been full since the riots broke out.

The Orange County Community Development Council, a private, nonprofit food bank in Costa Mesa, began preparing about 1,900 cases of baby food and cereal that are scheduled to be shipped to Los Angeles today.

Friday afternoon, about 1,300 U.S. Marines from Camp Pendleton were trucked up Interstate 5 to a staging area at the Tustin Marine Corps Helicopter Air Station. They are part of a contingent of 5,000 federal troops President Bush put on alert in an effort to reinforce overburdened state and local authorities in Los Angeles.

The Marines will link up with about 2,500 soldiers being flown to neighboring El Toro Marine Corps Air Station from Fort Ord near Monterey. They will not move into Los Angeles unless Bush orders them to. The U.S. Border Patrol also has sent 300 officers to Tustin and El Toro.

Already, local police agencies have sent 253 police officers and 53 vehicles to Los Angeles while fire departments have sent about 75 engine companies and 250 firefighters.

“The Orange County community has held together and kept its head. I think that is to its credit,” said Paul Raver, who was in charge of the county’s Emergency Operations Center Friday. “Today, everything has been calm.”

The county activated the center in Santa Ana Thursday morning to dispense accurate information to the public and make preparations for a major outbreak of violence. So far, the center has remained on a low level of alert, its 10-member staff assigned to rumor control and handling hundreds of calls from the public.

Since the rioting began in Los Angeles, Costa Mesa police said they have received about 25 reports of looting and vandalism at South Coast Plaza, all of which have turned out to be untrue. At UC Irvine, about 10 false bomb threats have been phoned into campus police.

“All day (Thursday) we were getting rumors like malls being looted or set on fire. That large crowds were gathering in different places. That there were thousands of people at Mile Square Park. That there was picketing at McDonnell Douglas in Huntington Beach. That there were shootings at South Coast Plaza,” said Capt. Dan Young, a spokesman for the Orange County Fire Department. “None of these were true.”

County leaders and law enforcement officials said that they do not expect any major incidents here related to the not guilty verdicts in the case of four Los Angeles police officers charged with beating of motorist Rodney G. King after a high-speed chase.

“In every dimension, I think we’ve got our act together more than our good neighbors,” Supervisor Stanton said. “We don’t believe any trouble is going to break out down here, but that doesn’t mean we’re not ready for it if it does.”

Much of the incidents late Thursday and early Friday centered in Santa Ana, where police handled no more than 10 calls involving smashed store windows and arson fires set in cars, trash dumpsters and at Rod’s Liquor Store in the 2700 block of West Edinger Avenue. Authorities found a small Molotov cocktail on the roof that caused little damage.

Firebombs also were thrown at a Sears, Roebuck & Co. department store on Main Street, a car on La Verne Avenue and a roofing supply store on Young Street. Looters hit a carpeting business and a delicatessen on Main Street, police said.

A melee by skinhead gang members led to the shutdown of a punk rock concert Thursday night at El Nuevo Monterey, a restaurant and dance hall at 601 N. Harbor Blvd. in Santa Ana. James Hernandez, the concert’s promoter, said about 15 members of a “white pride” skinhead group, apparently worked up over the rioting in Los Angeles, attacked several patrons and security workers during the concert.

Hernandez said that one security man received a broken nose and that he saw the skinheads set upon some long-haired patrons in the predominantly white audience of about 400, pushing them and grabbing their hair. Some of the skinheads also started a chant using the words “L.A.” and “riot,” Hernandez said.

In stark contrast to the 4,400-plus arrests in Los Angeles, only one person has been booked in Orange County in relation to the rioting--Randy Eugene Coupe, 32, a transient suspected of setting a fire in a trash bin in the 2100 block of North Main Street. He is being held in Orange County Jail in lieu of $25,000.

“Obviously, this is probably a spinoff of activities happening in L.A.,” said Lt. Robert Helton, a Santa Ana police spokesman. “But it’s random and they don’t seem to be organized by a large group of people. There’s no way to predict what we’re looking at. We’re just trying to stay alert if things escalate.”

In Huntington Beach, an arson fire caused at least $20,000 in damage to the police substation at 17261 Oak St. next to Oakview Elementary School. Someone broke out a window about 11 p.m. Thursday, poured gasoline inside the one-room facility and ignited it, police said.

Police said they do not know whether the blaze is tied to the riots in Los Angeles, but it nonetheless underscores the fear that lawlessness could spill into Orange County.

In neighboring Costa Mesa, someone threw two Molotov cocktails made out of beer bottles inside the state Department of Motor Vehicles early Friday morning, a Fire Department spokeswoman said. The small blaze scorched portions of the wood veneer paneling in the agency’s testing area, and smoke stained the floor and ceiling. Damages was estimated at $1,000.

As a precaution against further violence, government officials postponed or canceled three Cinco de Mayo celebrations and an anti-crime march through a gang neighborhood in central Santa Ana.

Elsewhere, the Celebrity Theater in Anaheim canceled comedian Bill Cosby’s weekend shows, and the Orange County Performing Arts Center postponed performances by the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

The Cinco de Mayo festivals were to be held at Mile Square Regional Park in Fountain Valley, the Santa Ana Civic Center area, and Centennial Park in Santa Ana. The Mile Square Park event attracted some 20,000 people last year, one of the largest Cinco de Mayo celebrations in the county.

“It just seems like the responsible thing this weekend would be for people to stay home,” said Santa Ana City Councilman Robert L. Richardson, who had planned to lead the march against gang violence today.

At some of area’s largest retail centers, such as the Brea Mall, The City Shopping Center in Orange and MainPlace/Santa Ana, some stores closed early Friday evening so that employees living in Los Angeles could return home before the curfew took effect. Though some businesses closed early or never opened at all Friday, most stores expect to be open for normal weekend hours.

“Many stores have made accommodations within their own staffs to allow employees living out of the area to work earlier shifts,” said Jan Roberts, director of marketing at South Coast Plaza, where weekend business hours are expected to remain unchanged.

Times staff writers Leslie Berkman, Mike Boehm, Vivien Lou Chen, Robert Elston, Rose Kim, Thuan Le, Eric Lichtblau and Gebe Martinez contributed to this report.