Violence Threatens a Nighttime Haven : Recreation: Anglers and other denizens of Newport Pier treasure the spot, but shootings may mean its closure.

Late Monday night, when the gangs weren’t banging on the Newport Pier, Chris Garcia proposed to his sweetheart. She said yes, and they drove back to San Bernardino.

From his perch near the telescopes, Bruno Madrigal said the gentle rolling of the nighttime surf never fails to spark thoughts of his family in Cancun. At least a couple of times each month, he comes just to stand and stare across the water.

And Michael Aresta, his teeth chattering in the chilly air, tossed his line into the sea, praying only for the mackerel to bite.

“When the tide changes,” Aresta said, leaning far over the scarred wood railing, “the fish go wild. . . . Some nights, they make me look like a professional.”

It was well after midnight, a time--until recently--when crime on the pier was measured by an occasional overhead cast or smuggled beer in a squid cooler.

But this is Southern California, and the gangs have become all too frequent visitors to this nocturnal paradise.

So unnerving was an incident last weekend, when gunfire wounded three and had some anglers diving for cover, that the city has threatened to shut down one of the last all-night entertainment refuges on the Orange County coast. The City Council is expected to discuss the possible closure next week.

That prospect distresses the pier’s faithful denizens, whose ranks were noticeably thinner than usual earlier this week.

Most nights, the outer railings are lined shoulder-to-shoulder with anglers, their gazes fixed on their bobbers in the water. On this night, however, even Joe Montana’s debut with the Kansas City Chiefs on national television couldn’t explain the absence of so many of the hard-core regulars.

Monday night and into the wee hours of Tuesday morning, police officers made regular passes along the long, narrow stretch of concrete in a show of force not seen since a similar crime eruption in July that left one person dead. Police are expected to continue the increased patrols indefinitely.

Among the 30 or so anglers who had settled in for the long night, only passing reference was made to the latest shooting, in which one teen-ager has been arrested. (Two of the wounded have been released from area hospitals, and a third victim remains in stable condition.) Some were almost blase about the incident and speculated about its causes.

But others worried that it might ultimately deprive them of a treasured haven.

“I’ve been coming here for years,” said 44-year-old George Dewey. “I know every inch of it. . . . I consider it my home. If they close this down, they close people like me down.”

Thomas Easley of Costa Mesa said he wasn’t present early Sunday morning, but he is a regular here for sure.

“I was here the night before, I guess,” he said, tugging at his black baseball cap. “I remember, because the sharks were biting real good that night. . . . You know, it ain’t no big deal. These days, you can get shot just riding the down the freeway.

“It was probably some drug deal gone bad and somebody came up here looking for somebody to pop,” he said.

Steps away, Aresta’s hunt for mackerel had improved by the minute. Although not able to keep the amazing pace of Charles Chen, who was hauling up two at a time, Aresta was pushing for a respectable finish even though his girlfriend, Andrea Woods of San Bernardino County, had long ago retired to the car.

“I think she is really mad at me. I promised her we would leave by 11:30 p.m.,” Aresta said at about 1 a.m. “I can’t leave while they are still biting.”

The late hour clearly was wearing on 3-year-old Sara Reid.

Earlier in the evening, she couldn’t have been more excited as she waved a rubber fishing lure in her mother’s face. Hours later, her mom was gently rocking the child in her lap, oblivious to both the late hour and news of the recent violence.

“We didn’t hear about it until we got here. We really aren’t concerned about it,” said Teresa Reid, who with her husband and other daughter, 9, traveled from West Covina just to fish from the pier. “We come out here because it’s quiet, and it’s one of the only places that stays open all night.”

One of the few other places open all night is the Seaside Donut Shop at the base of the pier.

Sean Smith was standing outside it on Monday evening, in about the same place where the first shooting happened in July.

“I always thought this was a real safe place,” Smith said. “But when the first shooting happened, I almost ran right into the guys who did it. There were people lying in the street that night.”