Not Just a Sunday Ride Anymore : Oxnard: Cruisers want to see and be seen at the evening gatherings. But police say it’s out of control and they’re cracking down.

As last light bleeds from the sky and the boulevard traffic thickens, a self-service carwash fills with cruisers preparing for Oxnard’s weekly ritual.

It begins Sunday evening with soap and wax and window cleaner.

The object is to see and be seen, and those who rule Saviers Road after dark don’t dare venture onto Ventura County’s most popular cruising strip without first perfecting their rides.

For Eddie Espinoza, it has always been this way.

When Espinoza was growing up in Oxnard, his uncle used to drive him up and down the strip on Sunday nights.

On a recent Sunday, he and a friend--who said he was fresh out of jail and ready for action--drove out from Lompoc to take part in something that has been around since before they were born.

“You keep your car nice and you try to take it out of here in one piece,” said Espinoza, 20, polishing the spoke rims of his clean, green pickup.

As he spoke, lowriding ragtop convertibles sat alongside customized mini-trucks in half a dozen carwash stalls. Booming stereos, some with speakers big enough to fill car trunks, competed for air time.

Cheap booze is in big demand around here and easy to get.

Soon cars will go bumper-to-bumper, loaded with teens whose hormones are stuck in overdrive. Gang members will flash hand signals across the boulevard, issuing challenges that police say are leading to confrontations more often these days.

And black-and-white police cars will circle like sharks, trying to bring order to a place that in recent months has spun out of control.

“You can’t stop cruising on Saviers,” Espinoza said. “It’s a tradition.”

But that’s exactly what the Oxnard police want to do.

Saying the potential for violence is too high, Chief Harold Hurtt has announced that he will seek to ban Sunday-night cruising on the popular mile-long strip of Saviers Road.

On a another recent Sunday, two young women suffered burns after an ex-boyfriend allegedly pulled up in a car and sprayed them with caustic chemicals. A few weeks ago, passengers cruised the strip flashing a gun.

“The situation down there is almost at a critical point,” said Hurtt, who is preparing a report detailing problems at the cruising spot.

It wasn’t long ago that the Oxnard City Council sanctioned cruising, and with the blessing of then-Police Chief Robert Owens. While cities such as Los Angeles, Newport Beach and Santa Barbara were blocking such activity, Oxnard was embracing the Sunday-night ritual, which has taken place on city streets since the early 1960s.

Just last year, police described cruisers as well-mannered and city officials said their tradition was a healthy alternative to gangs and drugs.

But things are different now.

“It has become a real drain on our resources,” said Oxnard Police Sgt. Cliff Troy, viewing the rowdy, slow-moving spectacle from the roadside. “It’s getting so bad that a lot of the local kids won’t cruise anymore.”

On this night, Troy was in charge of a group of 14 patrol officers, two motorcycle officers, two probation officers and one cadet. That’s not nearly enough to deal with the more than 300 cars, mostly out-of-towners, squeezing onto Saviers Road, he said.

“If the city decides they want to shut it down, then it will be shut down,” Troy said. “It will be difficult, but we can shut it down.”

By 9 p.m., traffic on the boulevard started to slow. Long lines formed at gas stations along Saviers between Iris and Yucca streets.

When 17-year-old Anna Johnston of Camarillo finally pulled up to a pump, six members of La Colonia’s Chiques gang spilled out of her dented compact car.

“Keep Saviers open,” they shouted, flashing gang hand signs. “Saviers will never die.”

Anna had trouble working the pump. She grew visibly nervous when two police officers pulled up and started eyeing her car while her friends were inside the station paying the cashier.

“I don’t see what’s wrong with what they’re doing,” she said of cruisers such as herself. “If they aren’t hurting anyone, what’s the problem?”

An hour later, the cruisers were averaging about 15 m.p.h. Still not slow enough for 19-year-old Steve Kral of Ventura, whose dark blue pickup sat in a hamburger stand parking lot waiting for the real cruising to begin.

The truck had been lowered and it hugged the ground. Pillows lined the truck bed for the maximum comfort of passengers. The stereo boomed the thundering bass line of a rap song.

“I usually average a ticket a week,” Kral said. “I have about nine violations on my truck right now. I’ll probably get stopped for something tonight.”

Kral said he sees the violence and other problems associated with cruising, but he believes that there aren’t enough police or barricades to bring the practice to an end.

“They’re just going to find a different place to cruise,” he said.

Police picked up their activity as the night progressed. Although they had been stopping cars all night, by 10:30 Saviers Road was blanketed in the red-and-blue lights of squad cars. Four or five officers responded to each traffic stop, standing at the ready and warning pedestrians to stay out of the line of fire.

Yolanda Garcia was one of those who made it past the police stops. She had come all the way from Los Angeles to check out the scene. She said she was looking for love. But for most of the night, she said, it was in all the wrong places.

“All the guys here act stupid,” said the 17-year-old, riding in the back seat of a jeep-like truck. “I thought it would be better than this.”

She and her friends continued to make the circuit. Shortly before midnight, Garcia found what she was after. She abandoned her friends and hooked up with the driver of a mini-truck, cuddling with him as he steered through the crawling traffic.

At a stoplight, the two talked for a few seconds. And then he kissed her. The light turned green, and they drove on down the boulevard.