Making Holiday Plans : Huntington Police Enforce Curfew and Cruising Laws to Put Revelers on Notice

This laid-back surfers’ town is wearing a decidedly anxious look this weekend as it girds to prevent the kind of street mayhem that has erupted on the past two Fourth of July holidays.

Along with barbecues and the city’s annual parade, Independence Day in Huntington Beach has come to mean police in riot gear, crowd-clearing water cannons in the shiny, newly renovated downtown, and throngs of bottle-throwing rowdies.

But this year authorities have laid sophisticated plans to prevent a repeat of such disturbances, which have become Surf City’s signature rite of summer.

“Even though the face of the area has changed, now there is a draw for everyone to come down here,” said Police Lt. Jon Arnold, who is coordinating the biggest police mobilization in the city’s history to avert rioting. “That creates its own problems. There are hundreds of people coming down here who years ago wouldn’t have been here. There was nothing to do.”

Merchants, many of whom will close early on the holiday to keep party-goers away, grouse that the new downtown has become a magnet for negative publicity. “You only hear about Huntington Beach on the Fourth of July, when the water truck and the riots occur,” said Stephen Daniel, a chocolate-shop owner who heads the Downtown Business Assn.

But there’s more at stake than Independence Day calm.

Unprecedented police preparations for the Fourth--coupled with a recent crackdown on the hordes of youths drawn to the made-over stretch of surf shops, bars and fast-food joints--have spawned new conflicts over the identity and direction of the once-blighted neighborhood, where parents with strollers brush past tattooed skinheads and shaggy-headed surf dudes.

The tug of war is apparent in resident and merchant support for recent curfew roundups and in the defiant reaction of young people in the street, where traffic signs are plastered with surfboard stickers and decals denigrating Huntington Beach police.

“We’re somewhat a victim of our own success in that it’s a very popular place for young people. Some people are uncomfortable with that--their physical presence on the street, hanging out,” said Keith Bohr, the city’s assistant project manager for the 6-year-old redevelopment.

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Storekeepers complain many youths visit the three-block stretch to do little more than cruise in cars or hang out on the street corners. Daniel said the brisk business offered by well-behaved young visitors often gets overshadowed by the rudeness of others. He said he has stepped outside his store more than once to find teens pummeling the life-size teddy bear that is the shop’s mascot. “If somebody could teach them respect and to leave other people’s space--but they don’t do that,” Daniel said.

Police have ratcheted up enforcement downtown in the weeks leading up to the holiday weekend by cracking down on drivers violating the city’s new anti-cruising law and through a well-publicized roundup last week of minors out past the 10 p.m. curfew.

Police have issued more than 800 vehicle and juvenile curfew citations since Memorial Day.

Some say the crowds of youths, who number in the hundreds on weekend nights, frighten older residents and threaten the future of the redevelopment.

“It’s an economic threat as well as some people take it as a personal threat,” said Loretta Wolfe, co-chair of a downtown residents’ group. “They’re scaring away the good-paying customer who needs to be there.”

Police say the wide sidewalks and ample outdoor seating invite loitering on Main Street, and its concentration of bars, some with second-floor balconies, hasn’t made controlling trouble downtown any easier.

But other residents say it’s the police who are spoiling for a fight.

“That’s why it gets worse every year, because the cops do more and more,” said Justin Kennedy, a tousle-haired 14-year-old who has lived close to the downtown since he was 7.

The increased enforcement reflects the importance of the downtown refurbishment, which has added more than 40 new shops, eateries and a movie theater and boosted the downtown’s value by at least $250 million, according to Bohr. The area was once a crime-ridden pocket of blight after losing its business to outlying shopping centers, and many of the apartments became crowded flophouses. “It was not a friendly atmosphere,” Bohr said.

The recent changes aren’t popular with those who feel the make-over has scrubbed away all remnants of the neighborhood’s ragged-edge charm.

“This is a surf town,” said Erik Blakeman, a 28-year-old unemployed welder who was hanging out on the Huntington Beach Pier on a recent afternoon with two friends. He pointed across the street at the pastel buildings anchoring the entrance to Main Street. “Look at that. It looks like a sellout town. . . . It took all the soul out of the place.”

His friend, Ben Smith, said: “It seems they’re trying to go upper class.”

The city’s concern with crowd disturbances go back well before the downtown changes, say residents and police. A car-burning melee erupted at a Labor Day weekend surfing competition in 1986 after some men tried to pull the bikini tops off of two women on the beach. A similar incident at a 1983 bikini contest triggered a smaller melee. Rioting also marred a 1969 Easter weekend.

But the mayhem during the past two Fourth of July holidays is especially worrisome to downtown merchants and residents who wonder if the city has an unwelcome annual tradition in the making.

“A lot [of troublemakers] come in to continue the tradition of having a rabble-rousing time,” said Daniel, owner of the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.

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Last year, police arrested more than 50 people downtown in a three-hour period on the Fourth, during a series of disturbances that included furniture burning in the street and crowds that police finally dispersed using water cannons. In all, about 150 arrests were made through the day for a variety of offenses, and police impounded about 250 bicycles from riders who lacked city licenses.

The police actions were praised by some but assailed by others as heavy-handed. In the wake of the melee, nine people filed brutality claims against the city, resulting in four lawsuits. The city has not paid on any of the claims.

Senior officers used to love working downtown on the Fourth of July, but now they would rather “serve chow at the chow hall,” said Sgt. William Stuart, an 11-year veteran of the department. “They know someone is just waiting to set them up.”

Police and merchants hope the extraordinary law-enforcement call-out will be enough to prevent a repeat of past years’ mayhem.

By the time dawn breaks on the Fourth, Lt. Arnold will have worked 11 days straight, many of them stretching beyond 12 hours. He has scrambled to draw up assignments for every member of the force, as well as senior volunteers and cadets.

He has met with merchants and residents to lay out the police plans, and huddled with officials from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and California Highway Patrol, who will be on hand to staff the city’s parade and barricades at closed downtown streets.

Arnold has set up parking for the horse trailers that mounted deputies will bring to town, and arranged a field kitchen for his troops at a local school, coordinating food and drink donations from more than a dozen businesses.

“It’s the largest single-day operation we’ve ever had,” said Arnold. “It’s a monumental task.”

The Huntington Beach police teams have received special training from the Los Angeles Police Department in “non-lethal” crowd control. Arnold said police will not be using water trucks this time.

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Mobile vans will circulate to pick up arrestees. The Police Department also plans to have fixed video cameras and four roving video crews to catch wrongdoers on film and help defend against any possible civil lawsuits filed against officers, Arnold said.

“There are kids who come down here and they want to be chased by the cops because it’s a game to them,” Arnold said. “But this year we’re not going to be chasing anyone. We’re going to arrest them.”

Already, the police presence can be felt downtown. As small groups of teens puffed cigarettes and strolled Main Street on Wednesday night, the foot patrol was busy sending its message.

One 16-year-old boy, who police said is a regular in the cat-and-mouse game played on downtown streets and named on a police list of likely “skinheads,” came face-to-face with Officer Daryk Rowland while smoking a cigarette.

Rowland promptly wrote him up for being a minor in possession of tobacco, one of two tickets the teen would receive for the same infraction that night. His collection at home already included a citation for curfew violation and another for smoking.

“We’re cracking down,” Rowland said, noting that he had warned the youth before. Rowland said teens are the ones talking tough about how trouble will erupt Tuesday.

“I don’t cause no trouble. I just sit on the corner,” the youth countered. Half a dozen of his friends, with shaved heads and tattoos, hung back waiting for police to let the boy leave.

Other teens said they planned to ignore the curfew this weekend. “That’s the chance we’re taking,” said Denny Davison, a 16-year-old from Moreno Valley.

Blakeman, the out-of-work welder, said his plans for the Fourth were no different from what he did last year: hopping from downtown party to party on his bicycle. But Blakeman and his friends said they hoped there would be no trouble.

No matter what happens on the Fourth this year, though, seasoned residents concede that the city’s notoriety already may be too stubborn to overcome.

“It’s just got the reputation,” said Chuck Bollman, 46, who lives six blocks from Main Street. “It’s going to be hard to break.”

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Rite of Riots

Public drunkenness and street brawls have become something of a Fourth of July staple in Huntington Beach. A look at some of the city’s more chaotic Independence Day holidays:

* 1989: Police arrest six youths in connection with a stabbing after a brawl at Huntington Beach Pier. The six 14- to 17-year-olds from Los Angeles and Duarte are arrested on suspicion of attempted murder. Police also issue 190 citations on July 4, most for alcohol-related infractions.

* 1993: Forty people are arrested during a downtown melee. Fifty police officers in riot gear are called in to break up the group of roving revelers who set huge bonfires in the streets, using trash, sofas and other furniture.

* 1994: Police arrest 500 adults during the holiday weekend, 150 on Independence Day alone. Arrests stem from people throwing firecrackers, rocks, bottles and blazing furniture at police.

Source: Times reports