Music, CHP Patrols, Sunny Skies Mark Long Weekend

Workers spruced up the marquee and prepared for revelers at what many were expecting to be the hottest New Year’s Eve ticket in the county when the band born in East L.A., Los Lobos, rings in 2001 at downtown’s Ventura Theatre.

Elsewhere in the county, party-goers were getting ready to toast the new year by dancing to big bands, classic rock and country-western tunes.

One of the most elaborate celebrations was scheduled to take place at the Hyatt Westlake in Thousand Oaks, where three bands, playing disco, big band and top 40 music, were entertaining patrons in separate rooms.

On the Ventura waterfront at the Banana Belt Cantina, the Jonathan Raffetto Band was scheduled to play acoustic music, while next door at the Holiday Inn, bands Typhoid Mary and Check One Two were set to rock the house.

As New Year’s Eve swung into gear early Sunday night, law enforcement officials said traffic on the county’s roadways was running smoothly and that no fatalities and no major injury crashes had been reported as of 3 p.m.

Since starting its maximum enforcement period at 6 p.m. Friday, the California Highway Patrol reported nine drunk-driving arrests as of Sunday afternoon. The stepped-up patrols will run until midnight tonight, a CHP dispatcher said.

Today is expected to be sunny and warm, according to the National Weather Service office in Oxnard. The forecast calls for partly cloudy skies with patches of dense fog in the morning but becoming sunny for the remainder of the day.

Temperatures should be in the high 60s along the coast and the 70s inland. Northwest winds up to 25 mph were anticipated.

“You gotta have a nice day on the first day of the year,” said David Sweet, a federal meteorologist.