Highway Closed Amid Bomb Scare

Businesses on a busy stretch of West Coast Highway in Newport Beach were evacuated and the highway closed for nearly two hours Tuesday afternoon while police warily dismantled a fake bomb used in a bank robbery.

At about 2:10 p.m., a man entered the Wells Fargo Bank branch at 2750 W. Coast Highway with a paper bag, which he placed on a counter. He announced that the bag contained a bomb, then jumped over the counter and took money from the teller stations.

There were 16 customers and bank tellers in the branch at the time of the robbery, said Lt. Doug Fletcher of the Newport Beach Police Department.

The man took an undisclosed amount of cash, ran to the parking lot and sped off in a white Chevrolet Suburban, leaving the supposed bomb behind. Deputies from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department’s bomb squad examined the contents of the bag and said it was not a bomb but some sort of electronic device, Fletcher said.

Business came to a standstill along the popular highway.

Tom Potts, the manager of a Radio Shack near the bank, said he and other merchants along the strip had shut down “because they kicked everybody out. . . . Everything is emptied out.”

At a nearby Starbucks, Potts said, employees and customers were milling about outside.

Dan Marcheano, owner of the Arches restaurant, peered out his window at the scene.

“It’s dead out there . . . like a ghost town, except for the cops and fire personnel,” he said.

The robber was described as a white male, 40 to 50 years old, 5 feet, 10 inches tall, with a stocky build and a pale, clear complexion, short dark hair, wearing a long-sleeved shirt and dark hat and pants.

Anyone with information about the robbery is asked to call (800) 550-6273.