Red, White and Blue--Plenty of Blue, in Fact

So who’s on your Fourth of July invitation list? How about hundreds of police officers, plenty of paddy wagons and maybe a Special Weapons and Tactics team or two?

That’s who the city of Huntington Beach is inviting today.

For a fourth straight year, police officers will blanket Surf City’s downtown area in the hope of averting street skirmishes that at one time annually marred local Independence Day partying.

Almost every sworn officer in the department will be on duty. Sheriff’s deputies and California Highway Patrol officers will be on hand as reinforcements. And barricades will prevent vehicles from entering downtown after 1 p.m. today, except those belonging to residents and bona fide guests.

The massive deployment has in recent years helped head off a repeat of the 1994 and 1995 melees, when drunken revelers set furniture ablaze and pelted police with firecrackers.

Since then, officers have clamped down on public drinking, even arresting people for consuming alcohol on their front lawns.

Such tactics have torn residents of the beach community. Some say the heavy police presence makes them feel much safer during the Independence Day celebrations. But others criticize what they see as overzealous enforcement that can spoil the fun.

“If you’re smiling too much, they’ll arrest you,” said Susan Sterns, 29, who lives a block from the beach. “We were thinking of going down to Newport Beach this year.”

Party-goers planning the same move are unlikely to find neighboring police any more relaxed. In Newport Beach, 200 uniformed officers will patrol the streets, many of which will be blocked off from incoming traffic beginning at noon today.

In Huntington Beach, the massive police presence is a response to residents and business owners who pleaded for police to “regain control of the downtown area” after the last disturbances, said Chief Ron Lowenberg.

The numbers of arrests at subsequent July 4 events quickly soared, to 549 in 1996. But that number has steadily shrunk. Last year, 106 people were taken into custody, mostly for drinking or being drunk in public.

One 1995 arrest led to an FBI civil rights investigation into allegations that police manhandled the arrestee. Two weeks ago, the U.S. Department of Justice notified local police that the matter was closed without further action, Lowenberg said.

Sensitive to such complaints, officers equipped with video cameras will today monitor police responses “to counter complaints of the freewheeling, baton-wielding police officers breaking up the party,” Lowenberg said. No complaints were filed against officers after last year’s celebrations, he added.

The deployment this year is expected to cost $79,859. Some local residents said they welcome the heavy police presence and increased enforcement.

“I support it,” said Steve Zeidan, 27, while working in his father’s grocery store, Ocean Pacific Market. “I know that if we have a problem, they’ll be here pretty quickly.”

Tammie Beckstead, whose home is on the parade route, agreed.

“As a resident and a mother, I’m all for keeping the celebration under control so it can be a family affair,” she said as she wheeled her bike down Main Street, her son, 6-year-old Brandon, in tow.

But others complained that police tactics include harassment of revelers for doing nothing more than having a good time.

“I understand trying to make the city safe, but disturbing the peace of everyone else while you try to do it is ridiculous,” said Melissa Large, 22, an assistant manager in Clothes Minded, a boutique on Main Street. “It’s like martial law.”