A New Niche for Convicted Ex-Huntington Beach Mayor

Life in the shadows can be a cold place after a career in the limelight. Just ask Dave Garofalo.

A year after pleading guilty to a felony and 15 misdemeanors for voting on matters benefiting companies that bought advertising from his publishing business, the former Huntington Beach mayor has logged more than 200 hours of community service and remains on probation.

The man who marked his swearing-in ceremony as mayor with a marching band now is barred from holding office and has been shunned, even vilified, by former constituents.

In a recent low moment, he was hit and knocked unconscious while having dinner by a resident still irritated by one of his votes. Garofalo wasn’t permanently injured and chose not to press charges.

But he has dusted himself off, put aside politics and is carving a new niche, this time as a restaurateur. Garofalo is joining three other investors and opening an Italian restaurant -- Bella Luna -- this spring in the heart of the city’s downtown.

“I just spent a lot of time straightening things in my life out,” Garofalo said as he passed time at Starbucks, one of his favorite Main Street haunts.

It’s here that residents still recognize Garofalo, shake hands and offer a “Hello, Dave,” as they order lattes.

Of course, he’s changed some: There’s more gray at the temples and more lines in his face, and a slight paunch is there, hidden this day by a well-tailored black shirt worn untucked.

The gleam in his eyes is still there, and Garofalo’s gift of gab is alive and well. But many residents question whether the criminal conviction has changed him. His restaurant partners, especially Joe Carchio, 60, owner of the local Italian deli Jersey Joe’s, stand by him.

“Look, what he’s done is behind him. Long gone. Yesterday’s news,” Carchio said. “When are you people going to give him a break?”

Although Bella Luna is due to open soon, its investors have not yet applied for a liquor license, said Carl DeWing, a spokesman for the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. Because of Garofalo’s felony conviction, it’s highly unlikely that he would be granted a license if he were a major investor, he said.

Carchio said Garofalo’s interest in the restaurant is less than 10% -- the threshold above which investors need to be named on the liquor license application, DeWing said.

Though he may be a small stakeholder in the restaurant, keeping a low profile has never been Garofalo’s style. He was raised in the Italian community of Federal Hill in Providence, R.I., and became one of Huntington Beach’s active volunteers. He was president of the local chamber of commerce, a board member for a start-up bank and chaired numerous civic groups in town before he won a City Council seat as a pro-business candidate.

In 1998, when he ran for a second term, he earned 13% of the vote, with more than 23,000 residents casting ballots for him. But within two years, he became the subject of complaints about ethics, resulting in investigations by the Orange County district attorney’s office and the Fair Political Practices Commission and subsequent criminal charges.

Garofalo insisted he didn’t realize he was breaking the law when he solicited tens of thousands of dollars in advertising from companies and then voted on dealings they had with the city. Still, he has accepted his role in “my self-destruction.”

The former mayor said that some of the things he did didn’t merit severe criminal charges. He said he was selling advertisements plainly visible on the pages of his newspaper: “Nothing hidden here.”

When he failed to report income for his role in a home-buying process, he explained: “I was penalized for the actions of a third party, in this case a builder, who moved me up in line to buy a house. I did not know he was going to do that.”

But the investigation revealed that Garofalo was given the right to buy a home in an exclusive new coastal development even though he was not on the waiting list.

Three days after buying the home, Garofalo quit-claimed the house at a profit to gas-station millionaire George Pearson.

Tim Geddes, a Huntington Beach businessman, isn’t among those willing to offer Garofalo public forgiveness -- at least not yet.

“The first thing that Dave should do is enroll in Orange Coast College and take a course on ethics,” Geddes said. “Now he wants to run a restaurant operation in town? He is the Pete Rose of Huntington Beach. He doesn’t feel that he’s done anything wrong.”

Garofalo says he has expressed remorse, completed contrition in the religious sense and doesn’t owe anyone any more apologies. In the meantime, he’s paying off $49,000 in state fines at $500 a month.

“You know, I’m a 56-year-old guy who can’t lock myself in my home,” he said. “But let me tell you, after the things I’ve been through, I’m one of the few people in the world who knows who his best friends are.”

What the restaurant may give Garofalo is merchant credibility. He and Carchio have plans not only for the restaurant but also for Huntington Beach’s colorful downtown, which, they argue, needs an image enhancement.

Carchio and Garofalo believe it’s time to rally merchants and reintroduce the idea of closing off Main Street to vehicles and converting it to a promenade, like Santa Monica’s. They believe that making Main Street a success will help the city erase budget deficits, provided they can rally enough merchants and hotel support to make improvements.

“For 30 years the downtown area has been in the midst of evolution, and the city has not been able to get the design right,” Garofalo said. “At night, what do you get? Fumes from the cars and noise from the motorcycles and young kids.”

He and his partner are in search of a happy medium for merchants and Huntington Beach’s young people who enjoy downtown at night.

“You can’t remove the surfers and surf culture from here,” said Garofalo.

“But it’s amazing the city hasn’t come up with a better way.”

Despite the tens of millions of dollars poured into downtown redevelopment, the surfing-dominated district just doesn’t provide the lift needed to draw tourists, Carchio said.

The latest effort to bury the city’s rough oil-town heritage has come with the recent opening of the 517-room Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach Resort & Spa.

Other developments and hotel projects are proposed, all geared to marketing the town’s nine miles of beaches as a resort.

“Look, the Hyatt people tell these tourists, ‘Say, if you want something to do, why don’t you take a stroll downtown,’ ” said Carchio. “That’s fine, but what’s here? And after dark, this place is all young people, so the tourists are likely to get in a car and go to Newport Beach.”

In the meantime, Carchio and Garofalo figure they can at least offer tourists some linguini with clams, Italian seafood and even a good steak.

But with other Italian restaurants and longtime cafes, brew pubs and sandwich shops jammed into downtown, time will tell whether Garofalo will rebound with Bella Luna.

“How long do you give us?” Garofalo asked, casting a glance at Carchio.

“Hey, Joe. How long do you think it will be before we’re not talking to each other?”