Holiday Weekend Brings Light Crowds to Southland Shoreline : Labor Day: Others celebrate L.A.’s 213th birthday or enjoy rock music festival. Traffic deaths are down.

Southern Californians bid an unofficial farewell to summer Monday in an eclectic array of Labor Day celebrations, with a mounting death toll from weekend traffic accidents providing a grim counterpoint.

Balmy weather and warm ocean waters lured an estimated 2 million people to Los Angeles County beaches over the three-day holiday weekend, but lifeguards said the crowds were small compared to those on other recent summer weekends.

“It’s unusually quiet for this time of year. It’s beautiful out here, but it’s not as crowded as it has been,” county lifeguard Lt. Don Souther said Monday from Santa Monica. “I’m guessing it’s the weather--it’s starting to cool down and surf has dropped off.”

Compared to other weekends, Souther said, about 40% to 50% fewer visitors came to the popular beaches stretching from Marina del Rey to the Malibu city limit over the Labor Day weekend. On Sunday, 312,000 sun and sea lovers turned out along that nine-mile stretch, which includes Santa Monica and Venice piers, Souther said.

“We had only three rescues on Sunday. That’s very quiet for a Labor Day weekend,” he said.

The crowd Saturday was much smaller, estimated at 212,000, with 10 rescue and first aid calls. In comparison, 273,000 people were attracted to the same beaches the previous Saturday, when 49 people required rescues or first aid.

Beach crowds also were fairly light in the South Bay, where attendance was estimated at 215,000 on Sunday. Lifeguards speculated that people were enjoying other activities because the brutal heat wave had finally ended. On Monday, the busiest day of the three, temperatures at the beaches were in the high 70s.

“I think this is one of the lightest holiday weekends we’ve had in many years, and I don’t know what it’s attributed to,” said lifeguard Lt. Robert Schroeder, who is based in Hermosa Beach. “Maybe it’s because we had some morning fog cooling things off.”

To the north, at Malibu, Zuma and Point Dume beaches, crowds were typical of any summer weekend, with 102,000 to 150,000 people flocking to the sands each day, said county lifeguard Lt. Steve Wood. Surf on these south-facing beaches started to pick up Sunday, drawing many of the surfers from beaches farther south.

The weekend rescues and accidents were minor--the usual bruised in-line skaters, dislocated shoulders, tipped-over catamarans and cycling mishaps. “Nothing more serious than some suturing at the hospital,” Souther said.

For those not tempted by the balmy beach weather, there were plenty of other activities to choose from, including the 213th birthday celebration for the city of Los Angeles, held near historic Olvera Street in Downtown.

Boy Scouts from Troop 364 kicked off the festivities, honoring the founding of Los Angeles, with a pancake breakfast at El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historic Monument. Events included games, an arts and crafts show and a salute with police and fire department helicopters.

Other holiday celebrations ranged from an arts street fair in Hermosa Beach to Lollapalooza ‘94, a rock music festival on the campus of Cal State Dominguez Hills.

But temperatures that climbed into the 90s in Arcadia were being blamed for the cancellation of the Festival Santa Anita, which had drawn only about 5,000 people by Sunday. Promoters had been expecting 60,000.

As always on holiday weekends, traffic fatalities and drunk driving arrests marred the festive mood.

Complete tallies will not be available until today. But by Monday morning, the CHP reported, there had been eight highway deaths in Los Angeles County, up from three last year.

Statewide, the CHP reported that 28 people had been killed in traffic accidents by Monday morning, down from the 49 deaths reported during the same period last year.

There were 1,521 drunk driving arrests statewide, a drop from last year’s total of 1,813.

Times staff writer Marla Cone contributed to this story.