‘Laguna Pride’ Festival Gets OK Despite Some Protest : Event: Opposition to the gay and lesbian ‘block party’ activities surfaced in the past week or so. The festivities begin Friday.

The City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved a permit allowing activities related to the city’s first gay and lesbian festival this weekend, while about a dozen irate residents voiced their objections.

“I truly feel this will cause a strong negative feeling against gays in this town,” resident Sally Hales said. In particular, some residents objected to “block party” activities planned in the area of Mountain Road and South Coast Highway.

The festival itself will be held at the Festival of Arts grounds.

City approval is not needed for activities that take place on the festival grounds. However, event organizers had to get a temporary use permit to erect a tent in a liquor store parking lot and to allow food to be served in what is now an unused commercial space at the Coast Inn. Various exhibits will be displayed inside the tent.

The Planning Commission unanimously granted the permit two weeks ago. But Councilman Robert F. Gentry appealed that approval so the City Council could consider it.

Doug Reilly, co-chairman of Laguna Outreach, the gay and lesbian community group organizing the event, said the action was a preemptive move to ensure that event opponents wouldn’t file an appeal at the last minute. Had that happened, Reilly said, there would not have been enough time to schedule the hearing before the event.

“We just want to make sure that nobody can muck this up,” he said.

In fact, opposition to the event did not surface until the past week or so, when residents who live on the streets separating the Boom Boom Room and Little Shrimp--gay bars between which most of the activities are expected to be held--protested by handing in a petition to the city clerk’s office.

“The situation on our block is already way out of control,” the group’s letter says. “The last thing we need to have is 6,000 individuals come to our neighborhood for any event.”

Problems in that area include drunkenness, trespassing and “lewd conduct,” the letter says, adding that it is “ludicrous” for a block party to be staged by people who don’t live on the block.

Area residents took their opportunity Tuesday to object to an event they said could change Laguna Beach’s image from an art community to what one resident called a “gay activities center.”

Gentry, however, praised the event and its organizers, who have taken pains to provide trolley service and additional police security for the weekend.

“I think you are bringing a great deal of credit to the city of Laguna Beach,” he said.

The city’s staff has estimated that “Laguna Pride Weekend,” which will begin Friday with a party at the Boom Boom Room, will draw up to 6,000 people. Flyers heralding the celebration have turned up in San Diego and San Francisco.

The block party amounts to advertised activities planned by area businesses, something the city does not regulate, city planner Ann Larson said.

“The block party aspect of it we really can’t control,” she said.

The City Council had voted unanimously last month to endorse the festival.

Reilly has said the event will provide a boost for local businesses.