WHAT TO DO AFTER DARK : NEWPORT BEACH : Problems Hurt Allure of Pier Area

As a bar owner, Richard Frei has several theories about why night life around historic Newport Pier has declined.

“It dropped off considerably, starting in 1990,” said Frei, owner of Rumplestiltskins Bar and Grill at the foot of the pier. “Traffic on the (Balboa) peninsula is a bear. Some people have started going to Huntington Beach and Dana Point.”

Frei said the 8-month-old 10 p.m. beach curfew, the two allegedly gang-related shootings at the pier this summer and a strong police presence have deterred some people who used to go to Newport’s coastal bars to “cut loose and have a good time.”

Frei said he sometimes runs into his former regulars at bars in Huntington Beach and Costa Mesa.

Frei and others agree that the countywide beach curfew and pier shootings alone are not business killers. But their impact has been exaggerated when added to the poor economy and rising fear of crime.

“All those things added together, Joe Six-Pack is only coming down here occasionally,” Frei said, adding that he thinks things will turn around in coming years.

Though business may not be as robust as it once was, some other merchants in the cozy area around McFadden Square in Newport Beach support the curfew and police presence because they help ensure public safety.

A manager at the Fisherman’s Galley, a restaurant at the tip of the pier, said this year’s beach curfew has not adversely affected business. It may have made things safer for the restaurant’s employees who have to walk down the pier in the middle of the night to their cars.

But, as Alex Farman, owner of Charlie’s Chili, a restaurant that stays open until 4 a.m. in summer as sort of a “sobering-up station” for bar patrons, says all this concern with crime and curfews has given the pier area a soiled reputation that is difficult to wash off.

“With all the police, this is probably the safest place in the world. I have been here 10 years and I have not had any (crime) problem,” said Farman. “But after the two (shootings), one after the other, we have suffered because of that.”