Once Again, Fullerton Residents End Year With Good, Clean Fun : Celebration: Alcohol-free, family-oriented First Night festivities take over downtown from 7 p.m. till midnight. An estimated 10,000 attend.

Most children her age would have to wake up to see 1994, but 3 1/2-year-old Jenna Ririe was determined to welcome the new year in person.

“We’re not going to bed,” Jenna announced from her stroller Friday night, making the noisemaker she spun live up to its name.

“We were hoping to wear her out and put her to bed early,” said Sheila Ririe, Jenna’s mom. “I guess not.”

The Riries of Chino Hills were among an estimated 10,000 people who attended Fullerton’s third annual First Night Fullerton, a family-oriented, alcohol-free New Year’s Eve celebration.

From 7 p.m. to midnight, families took over downtown Fullerton, which turned into a festive street carnival with live bands, pony rides, jugglers, food booths, fireworks and even an inflatable “Moon Bounce.”

Instead of Champagne, the revelers tossed back fruit juice and Pepsis.

“This is a great New Year’s Eve and this is a great way to celebrate it,” said Fullerton Mayor A.B. (Buck) Catlin as he kicked off the festivities from a stage outside the Fullerton Museum Center.

Nearly 100 other cities nationwide host similar First Night parties that blend a salute to the arts with a clean-theme New Year’s Eve. Other smaller-scale events also were held elsewhere in Orange County.

“Playing at places with a clean environment, we think it’s cool,” said Trash, 33, one of the founding members of the island rock-style band Sol La Ti, which performed at Fullerton’s festival. “The family thing is cool, too.”

For John Kade, a bass player with Sol La Ti, the alcohol-free evening represented the continuance of a personal victory. A former alcoholic, Kade said he is now in recovery and has not had a drink in nearly three years.

“One of the main reasons I’m playing in this band at all is because I’m sober,” said Kade, 35, of Chino Hills. “I have to be careful about myself.”

The night seemed to belong to the youngsters, who spent their last hours of 1993 jumping on the Moon Bounce, riding ponies, listening to bluegrass music and making chalk drawings on the streets. Lauren Tekip, 7, drew a banana on Harbor Boulevard, one of many streets blocked off to traffic during the five-hour festival.

“We don’t normally get to do this because a car would squish you into a million pieces,” said Lauren, who lives in La Mirada.

This was the second year that Lauren and her mother, Ardice, attended the event.

“You don’t have the worries you have in other places,” Ardice Tekip said. “It’s one of those few times when there aren’t so many obnoxious people out.”

Others were just content to avoid late-night traffic. Joseph Bowman, for one, walked to the festival from his nearby home.

“People just drive weird on New Year’s Eve,” said Bowman, 26. “And we just don’t want to be on the road.”

The absence of alcohol and the event’s strong family appeal have traditionally made disturbances virtually nonexistent, according to event organizers.

“People understand this is an alcohol-free event, and they know they aren’t welcome to come in here causing trouble and spoiling it for everyone,” said Stephen Wilber, special events coordinator for the city.

Similar alcohol-free events for families were held in Newport Beach and elsewhere in Fullerton on Friday evening. The Newport Dunes Resort offered a fireworks display, campfires on the beach, movies and mugs of hot chocolate at the waterfront resort.