LAGUNA BEACH : City OKs Proposal to Revise Curfew

Advised by police that this city’s staggered curfew, which allows 17-year-olds to stay out until midnight, is drawing out-of-town youths and causing problems, the City Council has given preliminary approval to a law that would corral all minors by 10 p.m.

Police Chief Neil J. Purcell Jr. told the council Tuesday night that an increasing number of youngsters from other South County cities--where the curfew is 10 p.m.--are showing up at later hours in the city.

The city’s curfew law, the only one of its kind in the county, requires that youngsters 14 years and younger be in by 10 p.m. while allowing 15- and 16-year-olds to roam until 11 p.m.

When police find minors from elsewhere loitering in the city, they call the parents, who often had no idea their children were even gone, Purcell said.

In a memo to the council, Purcell said that in recent months police have noticed more minors in town between 10 p.m. and midnight, especially on weekends, and that they have “increasingly been either victims of crimes or involved in more crimes and non-criminal mischief during these hours.”

The teens are particularly drawn to Main Beach, Heisler Park and Forest Avenue, Purcell said.

If the revised ordinance, which Purcell said has the support of the Laguna Beach Unified School District, wins final approval July 5, teens will have about a month to get used to the idea.

Councilwoman Lida Lenney, a former schoolteacher, urged police to handle the transition “with a little tenderness.”

The city had a 10 p.m. curfew from 1953 to 1986, when officials switched to the staggered version because they felt it was unfair to treat 13- and 17-year-olds the same way, according to the memo.