Council Votes to Close City Piers at Midnight

The City Council voted Monday to close the city’s two ocean piers at midnight, a move aimed at revitalizing the pier areas and keeping them clean and safe.

Fishermen, homeowners and merchants have been quarreling over the issue for more than two years. The council gave City Manager Kevin J. Murphy the authority last year to do whatever was necessary to keep the piers clean.

Two longtime Newport Pier anglers, Anna Marie “Sue” Brassil and Richard Beunger, subsequently launched a campaign to encourage anglers to pick up after themselves and stop overhead casting, another point of contention.

“I’ve spent $800 to $900 showing our intent: the right to fish, and a clean area,” Beunger said Tuesday.

With Mayor John W. Hedges and Councilman Dennis D. O’Neil dissenting, the council voted 5 to 2 to close the Newport and Balboa piers from midnight to 5 a.m., to increase police enforcement and to work with business groups that have complained about fish entrails and other litter on the piers.

Some homeowners, though, were not happy with the outcome.

“The City Council did absolutely zero. We’ve gone nowhere. The fishermen that went to the meeting are not the same people that cause the problem,” said Tom Hyans, president of the Central Newport Beach Community Assn.

Murphy had recommended installing surveillance cameras on the piers as crime deterrents and had estimated that four cameras, two for each pier, would cost a total of $28,000. The council rejected that as too expensive.

Beunger, a Santa Ana resident who said he has been fishing from Newport Pier for 20 years, agreed. “With that money,” he said, “they can put it into the police kitty” and beef up enforcement of existing regulations.