Joke About Laundry Fire Got Man Into Hot Water

Jerry Gard’s joke wasn’t the funniest of all time.

But was it so bad that it should land him in court?

Gard, 45, is a regular at a Laguna Beach self-service laundry. Last Saturday, broken leg and all, he limped in around 11:30 a.m. with his six loads of laundry and discovered the laundry patron’s worst nightmare: not enough available machines.

Laundry employee Mike Hoffman says Gard walked in and said, “There’s a fire. Everybody get your clothes out so I can use the dryers.”

None of the several people in the laundry bolted for the door.

Hoffman rolled his eyes but got a kick out of Gard’s attempt at humor. So did customer Kevin Crawford. “Everybody kept folding their laundry, joking and laughing,” Gard says.

Well, not everyone.

About 10 to 15 minutes later, a police officer arrived and told Gard to step outside. Gard says he asked them why, and they told him a customer had phoned them and accused him of making a false claim of fire.

Gard said he couldn’t believe it.

Believe it, the officer said.

Gard suggested the whole thing had been blown out of proportion, and Hoffman came out to mediate. The officer, Gard says, sent Hoffman back inside.

The officer asked the offended customer if she wanted to make a citizen’s arrest. She said she did.

As Gard stood there incredulously, she did the paperwork. Gard, who works as a warranty superintendent for a home-building company, is scheduled to appear in Municipal Court on Sept. 22.

The charge: filing a false claim of fire in a public establishment.

And to add insult to injury, the officer ordered Gard to pack up his wet laundry, leave and not come back.

Kevin Crawford, 25, was doing his laundry when Gard showed up.

“It was nothing more than someone trying to add a little humor to our Saturday in the laundry,” he says. “He said it very jokingly. There was no way anyone could interpret it any other way.”

But someone did, I tell Crawford.

“I don’t know if she was having a bad day or what,” Crawford says, “but this is all blown way out of proportion.”

Hoffman says Gard’s remark added levity to the mundane chore of doing laundry. He says the woman who phoned police angrily dressed down both him and Gard for questioning her actions. She also informed him that she was an attorney, Hoffman says.

I couldn’t reach the woman, but the deed is done. Gard has his citation and his court date. The police report indicates the woman said that Gard yelled, “Fire!”

Both Hoffman and Crawford dispute that.

“It wasn’t like he only said, ‘Fire, fire, everybody get out!’ ” Hoffman says. Mentioning immediately that he wanted to use the machines made it obvious that Gard was joking, Hoffman says.

Nor could I reach the officer who handled things at the scene, but Laguna Beach Sgt. Darin Lenyi says police have no options in a situation like that. “We’re obligated by law to accept a citizen’s arrest,” Lenyi says. “Our hands are tied.”

If the officer told Gard to leave, Lenyi says, it was probably because the officer couldn’t be sure that Gard--or anyone in that situation--wouldn’t retaliate against the person who had, in effect, just arrested them.

Lenyi says the officer would have explained to the woman that she was responsible for the arrest and would have to appear in court to testify. That may suggest, Lenyi says, that the woman was truly upset and that Gard may be leaving out some details.

This would all be laughable if Gard didn’t have to miss some work time to show up in court. Beyond that, even if the complainant was genuinely upset about Gard’s false alarm, she knew within a matter of seconds that he was joking. To equate what he did with the dangerous scenario of yelling fire in a crowded place is ridiculous.

Are we being just a little uptight here?

A strict constructionist could argue that the woman was trying to teach Gard a lesson. In another set of circumstances, she would have been right.

I think there’s a simpler explanation for what she did:

Doing my laundry puts me in a bad mood too.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by writing to him at the Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail to dana.parsons@latimes.com.