This Riot Was More Like a Garden Party

Think the boxing riot at Madison Square Garden Thursday night was a biggie?

You should have been in Los Angeles’ Olympic Auditorium, on the night of April 30, 1964, the night Mexican hero Alacran Torres fought Japan’s Hiroyuke Ebihara.

Now that was a riot. The building almost came down.

When it comes to boxing riots, the Olympic wrote the book.

“This was a case where the people rioting weren’t trying to hurt each other, they were trying to destroy the building,” recalled boxing publicist Bill Caplan, who was there, watching flaming chairs flying down from the balcony.

It was a classic, powder keg-and-match kind of result, of which the old Olympic had many: A prominent Mexican fighter loses a close decision to a non-Mexican and . . . DUCK!

The late Jim Healy, at the end of an Olympic telecast one night, signed off this way from under the ring, to the sound of screams and chairs and bottles crashing in the background, “Good night from the Olympic!”

At the Torres-Ebihara fight, Caplan recalls, a largely Mexican crowd roiled into fury when Ebihara got a split decision.

“The first thing I remember was a lot of seats in the balcony burning,” he said. “And even though they were bolted down, somehow they got ripped right out of the floor.

“Then [the fans] started throwing them, and some bottles, on the crowd below.

“The Olympic used to have block walls on the floor level, behind the seats. They pushed a couple of those over too.

“Police in riot gear came and the Fire Department guys finally cleared out the building with fire hoses.”

Then there was the Chucho Castillo-Lionel Rose bout at the Forum, Dec. 6, 1968. Again, a Mexican national, Castillo, lost a tight decision, to Rose, the Australian world bantamweight champion.

There was little rioting inside the Forum, but within moments, cars in the parking lot were in flames.

Security staffs at major Southland sports venues, in interviews Friday, seemed aware of potential riot problems at boxing shows, but also expressed concern over pickpockets, drug and alcohol abuse and even ticket scalping at sports events.

A day after New York’s riot, here’s what some of them had to say:

Alex Augusta, security chief, Hollywood Park: “The protection and safety of our patrons, that’s No. 1 with us. We also have undercover people, looking for pickpockets.

“Jockey safety is another main item. . . . We have people in the jocks’ room, we escort them anywhere they go. We’re concerned with internal theft too, just like any corporation is.

“If we’re having a non-racing event, like a rock concert, we call venues where they’ve appeared before, checking to see if they’ve had problems before.”

Lee Zeidman, security chief for the Forum: “We had 17,600 here for the Oscar De La Hoya-Julio Cesar Chavez [closed circuit] telecast, and we devised plans for two things we didn’t want to happen: losing the feed before the event or during the fight, and . . . a bad decision. For boxing or music shows, we always tie all the floor chairs together. You don’t want angry people picking up chairs.

“At a typical boxing show, we’ll have five uniformed officers and 30 [security] guards. At a major event, it’ll be 18 police, 80 [security guards].

“Our security costs for De La Hoya-Chavez were between $8,000 and $10,000.

“I’d say our No. 1 security problem at the Forum is people trying to scam their way into the building, or sneaking in, particularly for sellout Laker games.”

Kevin Uhlich, Angels’ director of Anaheim Stadium operations: “At an average game we’ll have maybe 30 uniformed police on hand. We give the city a 72-hour estimated attendance number, then another one 24 hours ahead.

“We’re always looking at plans for worst-case scenarios. We have a security plan should an earthquake occur during a game, for example.

“I suppose our No. 1 problem is alcohol, in the sense that it contributes to a variety of security problems. Disputes between fans, scalping--they’re right up there too.”

Doug Duennes, Dodger Stadium operations chief: “We see our security program’s goal as having families who come here feeling safe in both our stadium and the parking lot. We think we’ve achieved that.

“Alcohol would be a high-ranking problem, but not a major one. We think we manage it well. We wrestle with scalping too, outside the stadium.”

Hugh Kollar, general manager, StaffPro, a security firm staffing the Forum, Pond of Anaheim, Long Beach Arena, Irvine Meadows and San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium: “At a boxing show, you hope for a small crowd because drunks are easier to spot.

“Our staffing depends on the event. We have a heavy metal concert July 19 at the Forum, and we’ll have about 175 security people. Our record is 555, for an Irvine Meadows concert.

“At any sports event, when we see a lot of people sitting together and they’re all drinking, that’s a problem waiting to happen.”

Tim Ryan, assistant general manager, Pond of Anaheim: “We had a sellout crowd for the De La Hoya-Chavez telecast, and we planned security for two weeks and had a 16-page plan that included worst-case scenario plans.

“There was tension in the air that night and there were a few fights in the crowd, but nothing serious. We stopped alcohol sales five minutes before the fight.

“Also, you couldn’t have walked 20 feet anywhere in the arena that night without seeing security. It kind of set the tone for the kind of venue you were entering.”

Jim Granger, supervisor, Contemporary Services Corp., security provider for the Rose Bowl, Coliseum, Sports Arena, Hollywood Bowl--”For an average UCLA football game, we’ll have about 120 security people and maybe 200 for a Galaxy [Major League Soccer] game. The Pasadena police will have 40 to 50 officers at a UCLA game and 50 to 80 for a soccer game.”

Times staff writer Chris Foster contributed to this story.