Diana Fans Scooping Up British Papers

Italian restaurant owner Dominic Picarelli has always dreamed that one day, customers would come from miles around to try his fare.

But when they bombarded his Costa Mesa business this week, it wasn’t the pizza they were after. It was the few copies of the British newspapers that Picarelli stocked on a small newsstand in front of his restaurant.

Following Princess Diana’s death in a spectacular crash over the weekend in Paris, the papers have sold out in a matter of hours, sometimes minutes. People have arrived before opening hours and waited patiently in efforts to be the first to get their hands on the coveted newspapers.

“I’ve seen people literally arguing over them,” said Picarelli, 36, owner of the Napa Valley Pizza and Pasta on East 17th Street. “This has become almost a fanatical situation.”

The demand for the foreign periodicals comes at a time when public anger at the media is at a high, with many blaming the princess’ death on paparazzi who were allegedly chasing Diana and her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, before the accident. Yet, sales at some newsstands have never more brisk.

In Orange County and nationwide, newspaper distributors and vendors say the public’s thirst for information about Princess Diana has become insatiable and has surpassed anything they’ve ever seen before, including the deaths of Elvis Presley and John Lennon.

Vendors said the level of interest has baffled them, given the fact that Diana was not even American. Several newsstand clerks reported seeing people lose their temper when told that what they wanted had been sold out. Exasperated, customers have stormed off to other stores, only to experience the same frustrations.

“Look around town, there are no British papers to be found,” said Fernando Serrini, Los Angeles manager for Speedimpex, a distributor specializing in European publications. “We’re talking to England every morning about the dreadful need for papers. But they’re having their own troubles. . . Whatever they manage to ship out is just a miracle.”

Although the British publications have been the most difficult to find, local magazines such as Time and Newsweek also have sold out as soon as they hit the stands. Bookstore chains such as Borders Books & Music reported problems with trying to increase their orders of the magazines.

“We’ve gotten some [extra copies], but not nearly as many as we wanted,” said Stan Iddings, general manager for the store’s Brea branch.

The reasons for collecting the periodicals vary among buyers, some of whom want to save a piece of “history” for their children and others who are die-hard fans who have been following the princess since her royal wedding in 1981.

The papers and magazines that have sold out are basically foreign publications that are not grouped in the same category as tabloids such as the National Enquirer and the Globe, which have been criticized for encroaching on celebrities’ private lives by paying paparazzi , photographers who specialize in celebrity shots. Diana and her companion, Dodi Fayed, allegedly were chased by several such photographers before the crash.

Many stores and supermarkets in Los Angeles and Orange counties, including the Stater Bros. and Hughes chains, have removed the tabloids from their shelves as a result of public anger over the chase. Officials for both chains said they are meeting to decide whether to continue stocking the tabloids.

Others said they have removed this week’s issues only because they were printed prior to the princess’ death and included topics that customers say are insensitive. A cover story in the National Enquirer carried the headline, “Di Goes Sex Mad,” said Picarelli, who pulled those copies from his newsstand.

But for collectors such as Kelly Kole, a Corona del Mar flight attendant, anything with Princess Diana on the cover must be bought, even if it is the Globe or the Star.

Kole, who is the same age as the princess and has been following royalty for as long as she can remember, said she has been going from store to store, lapping up anything with Diana on the cover.

Her mornings begin at Barnes & Noble in Fashion Island. The next stop is Lido Book Shoppe, on Balboa Peninsula, and then a nearby Vons Pavilions. Her stack of Di-related newspapers is about 2 feet high, she said.

Although Kole blames the paparazzi for Diana’s death and despises what they do, she has bought several tabloids.

“I’ve had guilty feelings,” she admitted.

At the Napa Valley Pizza newsstand earlier this week, two women were fighting over the last issue of the Sun, a British newspaper, which had the headline “Sleep Sweet Princess Sleep.”

“At first they were trying to be cordial,” newsstand owner Picarelli said. “All of sudden, they realized that they wouldn’t be able to get another one. Then it was like, ‘No, it’s mine!’ . . . One of them just took it. We had to tell the other that we’d try our best to get her another copy tomorrow.”

Picarelli was unable to get another.

“It’s almost Solomon-like the way we’ve had to divvy up the papers,” said Lido bookstore manager Irma Wolfson, referring to a Biblical passage in which the king proposed that a child be cut in half amid an argument between two women, both claiming to be the child’s mother.