5 Diners Injured When Branches Fall Off Tree

Five restaurant-goers were scraped and bruised Sunday morning when 20-foot branches fell off a 100-year-old star pine and landed in the patio of the Cottage Restaurant.

“The branches were 3 and 4 inches in diameter, and there were about a half-dozen of them that fell,” said Mark Baker, a Laguna Beach Fire Department battalion chief. “Luckily, people heard the branches cracking and breaking away, and most were able to get out of the way. Somebody could have been seriously injured, but nobody was.”