Sunless Labor Day Is No Sweat

Gary Gray’s last day as a lifeguard at San Buenaventura State Beach couldn’t have been less eventful.

There was no going-away party, no big rescue and almost more gulls on the beach than people--hardly the season’s traditional last hurrah.

“This is like our slowest weekend so far of the whole summer,” Gray said. Then the burn-off began.

The sun finally appeared after a dreary weekend that dampened many Labor Day plans. Though Saturday and Sunday were pretty much shot, several hours of decent beach time could be had Monday afternoon.

Earlier in the day, lifeguard supervisor Scott Parrish surveyed the beach from the tower at headquarters and called it “the slowest Labor Day we’ve seen in years.”

“It’s like winter,” Parrish said.

But about 1 p.m. it began to look more like Labor Day, with Parrish estimating “a couple thousand” beach-goers. Out they came--with blankets and beach balls, surfboards and suntan lotion--hoping to salvage the holiday weekend in a few hours.

Not everyone was caught off guard by the weather.

Residents of North Bryn Mawr Street in Ventura knew to start their annual block party after noon, giving the neighbors a better chance for sunny weather. After seven years of setting up their lawn chairs and grills underneath the street’s mimosa trees, they know that Labor Day, in Ventura at least, usually starts out cloudy.

And Labor Day all over Southern California usually ends in traffic.

A massive backup occurred about 1 p.m. on the southbound Ventura Freeway. For more than two hours, cars and pickup trucks hauling boats were bumper to bumper between Victoria Avenue and California Street.

No traffic fatalities or major-injury crashes occurred in the county between 6 p.m. Friday and 8 p.m. Monday, according to the California Highway Patrol and city police departments.

Authorities reported 27 drunk-driving arrests during that period.

The CHP said it received several calls from concerned drivers but that the traffic was caused by thousands of motorists headed home after the holiday weekend.

Monday was also the official kickoff for the fall political campaign season. Local Democrats gathered in Camarillo for a picnic to show off their candidates. The Republicans will have their get-together this weekend.

In Thousand Oaks, where the sun was out most of the day and temperatures were higher, some folks completed a second round of back-to-school shopping. With many schools having started last week, Monday’s day off was a chance to get forgotten items and to keep up with classmates and their trendy backpacks and overalls.

Chasya Cross, 13, had already bought most of her back-to-school clothes, but came from the San Fernando Valley on Monday to visit her grandparents in Moorpark.

“Now she’s hitting her grandparents up for a few more items,” said Chasya’s grandmother, Sharen Cross, who was part of the six-person Cross shopping crew at a Newbury Park store.

At San Buenaventura beach, one person who didn’t need to be inside trying on school clothes was Gina Albert, 12, of Canyon Country. The reason: She and her classmates wear uniforms.

Times Community News staff writer Holly Wolcott contributed to this report.